Your Occasional Reminder of Who Would Be a Journalist?

As the late, great Terry Pratchett once said ‘It’s not worth doing something unless someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren’t doing it’ and in the modern world that seems to apply first and foremost to the profession of journalism.

It’s not an easy time to be a journalist. Throughout history, at least in societies free enough to have them and whose governments didn’t instead turn the media into an organ of the state, journalists at their best have sought to shine light into the dark places the powerful would much rather keep hidden. And the powerful have never been shy of biting back, from Trump’s popularization of the term ‘Fake News’ (wherein if you see a story you don’t like, veracity be damned, you simply accuse the journalist of having an agenda and play the victim) to the much darker threats they can face as some of the powerful aren’t satisfied with simply smearing journalistic reputations.

The Committee to Protect Journalists announced earlier this year that 2024 was the deadliest year for journalism in its history...

“More journalists were killed in 2024 than in any other year since the Committee to Protect Journalists began collecting data more than three decades ago. At least 124 journalists and media workers were killed last year, nearly two-thirds of them Palestinians killed by Israel.

The number of conflicts globally – whether political, criminal, or military in nature – has doubled in the past five years, and this is reflected in the high number of deaths of journalists in nations such as Sudan, Pakistan, and Myanmar.”

While death is the worst consequence a journalist can face for doing their job, they can also be imprisoned or otherwise harassed. The countries cited by the CPJ are of course those that feature heavily in our collective consciousnesses as places we wouldn’t necessarily want to live. Russia, Belarus, China…the states where we imagine the firm boot of the authoritarian is primed and ready to come crushing down on anyone who steps out of line. But sometimes it does bear checking in closer to home.

According to a report in ‘The Guardian’, this week Amnesty International unveiled a report revealing that Journalists in Northern Ireland

“…routinely face attacks and death threats from paramilitary and organised crime groups that act with impunity, according to Amnesty International.

Reporters have been physically assaulted and told they will be shot, stabbed, raped or blown up, making Northern Ireland the most dangerous place in the UK for journalism…

…It documented more than 70 attacks and threats since 2019 but found there were no prosecutions for threats from paramilitary groups, the most significant source of the intimidation.

“Journalists in Northern Ireland are facing a sustained campaign of threats, intimidation and violence from armed groups, which makes it the most dangerous place in the UK to be a reporter,” said Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty International UK’s Northern Ireland director.”

The Guardian goes on to highlight that Allison Morris of the Belfast Telegraph has suffered serious harassment over the years because of her work

“Police visited Allison Morris, the Belfast Telegraph’s crime correspondent, nine times between December 2023 and October 2024 to warn about threats from paramilitary or criminal groups. “I’m convinced someone’s going to kill me at some point,” said Morris. “I always think I’ll never die of natural causes. Most of the time, I pretend that the threats don’t annoy me, but clearly, they do. This is not a normal way to live.”

Allison’s bravery in facing the threats head on and continuing to do her work of course don’t detract from the fact that she shouldn’t have to be facing such threats at all and that she does is yet another facet of the continuing scourge of paramilitarism which has yet to be eradicated from our society.

Now journalists aren’t perfect. Anyone can cite a story from a journalist that they believe is indeed biased, or which can be accused of framing a story somewhat disingenuously as yesterday’s piece by Brian O’Neill demonstrated when he emphasised that the story regarding MLA Cara Hunter which headlined that she receives £300 an hour advising an AI firm only revealed she did 14 hours of work a year for the company much further in and in much smaller font. And of course much of the past few days has been dominated by the fallout from the Dublin based trial launched by Gerry Adams in which he successfully accused the BBC of libelling him (the BBC is considering an appeal on that). But I would like to believe that those are the exceptions rather than the rule.

Overall, and at their best, journalists allow the rest of us to see what others are trying to hide from us, and in the full glare of day those who prefer to move in shadows can be held to account. We have to be cognizant that those who prefer the shadows may desperately want to remain there, and they may lash out at those who threaten to expose them. To the vast majority of journalists who seek to keep the powerful honest, we owe not only our gratitude, but our solidarity.