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Deadly year for media workers … Trinidad’s President urges Red Cross-like immunity for journalists
President, George Maxwell Richards
The year 2012 is shaping up to be the deadliest one for media workers with 72 persons in the field killed for the year and the International Press Institute (IPI) has expressed alarm.
Speaking yesterday to hundreds of Journalists and Editors during the opening session of the IPI’s 2012 World Congress in Trinidad & Tobago that country’s President, George Maxwell Richards, urged for consideration of immunity for media workers, similar to what the Red Cross has.
A number of media entities including Kaieteur News, Stabroek News, Capitol News and Demerara Waves are in the Twin-Island Republic for the Congress, which is being held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Port-of-Spain.
IPI has membership in more than 120 countries.
According to the President, journalism is no walk in the park.
“The reports of 110 journalists killed in 2009 and 66 in 2011 give no comfort whatsoever and the record of deaths over the last five years should lead to sustained thrust in the international arena in the matter of impunity for those who threaten, harass or kill journalists, which impunity seems to be the norm.”
The statesman drew comparisons of media workers to diplomats.
The Congress, held under the theme “Media in a Challenging World – a 360 Degree Perspective”, is slated to conclude tomorrow and includes issues like reporting on corruption, the role of state-owned media, natural disasters and its impacts on press freedom and online media ethics.
So far this year … 72 journalists have died because of their work. Last year was the second-worst on record … with 102 journalists killed. And 2009 was the grimmest ever … with 110 deaths – 32 of them in a single election convoy massacre in the Philippines in which another 26 civilians were slain.
According to Alison Bethel Mckenzie, IPI’s Executive Director, it is deeply disturbing that journalists are dying on the job in record numbers.
The most lethal country in the world for journalists so far this year has been Syria – where a largely-peaceful ‘Arab Spring’ uprising has morphed into a violent conflict. So far in 2012 … a total of 20 journalists and citizen reporters … both foreign and local … have been killed in Syria.
Meanwhile Richards shared his views on the emergence of the internet and news websites.
Media workers at the Hyatt Hotel in Trinidad yesterday for the IPI World Congress.
“Let me say, for what it is worth, that the internet, the fifth estate, cannot replace the media…Some may regard it as one of the challenges which you face, but I see it rather as an instrument which can facilitate. There ought to be no competition which can have the negative result of sensation replacing responsible journalism.”
The challenges, he said will not disappear. He urged that diplomacy be used to have dialogue with key decision makers.
“The media, having played a significant role in the liberation of people, would hardly be willing to appear to be enslaving itself in any form. Nevertheless, the guiding principle of responsibility must be critical to your endeavours.”
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