Don't shoot the messenger: prospects for protecting journalists in conflict situations

Abstract

One of the greatest threats to freedom of expression around the world is the violence committed against journalists practicing their profession in conflict situations. During the last 20 years, an alarming number of journalists have been targeted or killed when reporting about war. This situation has prompted several international organizations to offer suggestions on how to protect the messengers who report about war. In this study, the authors provide a historical overview of journalist protection. In addition, they explore a number of recent declarations, resolutions and strategies introduced to protect journalists targeted in conflict zones. One particularly controversial strategy, the Press Emblem Campaign, is examined by interviewing various international stakeholders. The authors demonstrate that while no clear comprehensive method to protect journalists has yet to be universally accepted, this global problem has generated increased international attention.

Media and Mass Shootings: Field Theory in CNN News Coverage of the Columbine High School and Parkland High School Mass Shootings

“…This has had implications for coverage of crisis events over time with a greater degree of misinformation tending to be shared between confirmed reports (Deavours, 2020). Deavours (2020) compared the Sandy Hook school shooting with news coverage of 9/11, with an interest in the journalistic norm of neutrality-a norm journalists struggled to enact not only in the dissemination of the facts of the event themselves but also given concerns for their own safety in onscene reporting situations (Henrichsen, 2021;Lisosky & Henrichsen, 2009). Deavours' study (2020) demonstrates that enacting neutrality primarily became difficult in light of discussing policy decisions, more so even than in discussing the deaths resulting from the school shooting event.…”

Re-Conceptualizing Safety of Journalists in Bangladesh

“…We have found three limitations in previous studies of journalist safety. First, we found that most studies on the safety of journalists stemmed out of conflict and reporting of war zones (Ashry, 2019;Aslam, 2015;Creech, 2018;Düsterhöft, 2013;Eide, Khalvatgar, & Shirzad, 2019;Greppi, 2004;Høiby & Ottosen, 2017;Kim, 2010;Lisosky & Henrichsen, 2009;Relly & Bustamante, 2014;Saboory et al, 2017;Tumber, 2006). Journalists' safety in stable authoritarian or hybrid regimes like Bangladesh hardly gets scholarly attention.…”

Human Security as a Conceptual Framework: The Case of Palestinian Journalists

“…KEYWORDS: Gaza Strip, human security, news media, Palestinian journalists, press freedom, West Bank Introduction Scholars, global press rights groups, and other organizations around the world have documented an increase in insecurity among journalists when carrying out their work (Bjørnskov and UNESCO 2016UNESCO , 2018. Most research on insecurity and risk has focused on violence against journalists or news media and their work in conflict zones (Høiby and Ottosen 2017; Hughes and Márquez-Ramírez 2017; Kim and Hama-Saeed 2008;Lisosky and Henrichsen 2009) or "insecure democracies" (Hughes et al 2017b, 645). This exploratory study uses a challenging case to further analyze other types of insecure environments that journalists face in their occupation and, perhaps more important, to examine necessary conditions for journalists to perform work in the public interest.…”