Journalists and reporters have an unofficial badge of honor they work for in their careers: credibility. Or what people in the media industry sometimes jokingly refer to as “street cred.” It is usually earned by reporting under dangerous, extremely taxing, or even life-threatening circumstances.
An extreme example is a story I heard from a former journalist who worked for NPR in Nicaragua and El Salvador in the 1980?s. He told me that he and another journalist were once kidnapped while working on a story. That’s serious street cred. Other stories I have heard include things like riding in a vehicle on rough roads in a third-world country while trying to outrun gunfire. Or breaking a leg while on night patrol with US soldiers in Afghanistan and walking on it all night to get out of enemy territory.
Those examples of street cred so infallible that the reporter instantly earns a certain level of respect. Those, and many other stories, involved journalists who went to the verge of the battle–whatever it might have been–and got a little too close for their own personal safety. Luckily, they made it out alive.
The situation in Egypt is likewise forcing numerous journalists into this category of those who have brushed up against danger and death and lived to tell the tale. But the problem is, reporters in Egypt shouldn’t be getting attacked, kidnapped, arrested, detained, and beaten with iron bars.
Most recently, a journalist working for the semi-official state newspaper, Al-Ahram, Ahmed Mohammed Mahmoud, was killed.
Not that it should ever happen anywhere, but Egypt’s track record in an extremely short period of time is so bad that it should do more than raise eyebrows back home. It should awaken alarm, because targeting journalists is an obvious intention to hide the truth from the world.
Whatever the story is in Egypt at the moment is of grave importance, and the world needs to hear about developments from reporters who are there, on the ground. The news and information coming from inside Egypt, despite the ruling administration’s efforts to thwart it, is punctuated with a tremendous number of stories about attacks on reporters. At best, it’s distracting from the main story the very people getting attacked are trying to tell. At worst, it’s pushing journalists into the mix and making them part of the story. And when a reporter becomes part of the story as violent as this one, their personal safety becomes paramount, not the news they are trying to gather.
There’s an encouraging thought in all of this, though. Of all the tales I’ve heard from journalists who have worked throughout the world from Africa to Afghanistan and beyond, there is an overarching theme: no matter what the powers that be do to control information and those who convey it, the truth will come out.
Attacks on Media in Recent Weeks
Journalists killed: Ahmed Mohammed Mahmoud from Al-Ahram
Journalists attacked but not detained: 75
Journalists detained for at least 2 hours: 72
Journalists we don’t have any news about: 7
Case of material harmed and media offices closed: 25
Media the most targeted: Al Jazeera with 3 reporters attacked and 4 detained (all released) + office trashed.
Countries with the most harassed journalists in Egypt: US (29 + a VOA team) France (18) Poland (9) Qatar (7 – all Al Jazeera)
Source: Reporters Without Borders