And I Quote (April, 2006) Journalists Risk Lives to Provide Truth to Readers

And I Quote: Journalists risk death to provide readers with truth
By Kate Knowles
Collegian Staff
April 5, 2006

“As journalists are being kidnapped, detained and killed, it becomes exceedingly hard for them to do their job in Iraq, and it is we, the general public, who lose from it.”— Ann Cooper, Executive Director of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Journalist Jill Carroll of the Christian Science Monitor was released Thursday, after being held hostage for three months by a group called the Revenge Brigades. She was abducted on Jan. 7 while on her way to interview Adnan al-Dulaimi, a Sunni Arab politician. The group demanded that various women detainees be freed from imprisonment, and threatened to kill Caroll if their demands were not met.
Carroll is certainly not the first journalist captured since the beginning of the Iraqi conflict. Many have been detained as prisoners of war, exploited on TV and even killed. Since 2004, 39 reporters have been kidnapped, and six have been killed, including Tom Fox, a member of the Christian Peacemakers Teams.
Ann Cooper, Executive Director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, stated, “As journalists are being kidnapped, detained and killed, it becomes exceedingly hard for them to do their job in Iraq, and it is we, the general public, who lose from it.” To say that we “lose from it” is unfair to the reporters, and the fact that they are risking their lives to provide us with the truth.
While she may have meant something entirely different, Cooper seems to be suggesting that we are the only ones who lose a precious variable in these circumstances. She also mentions that their jobs have become “exceedingly hard for them to do.” Tell us something we don’t already know.
As a person who is looking into the writing aspect of communication, it is extremely frightening to imagine that these people are victimized when truth is an element. Truth is not a respectable ideal to those who implement fear and torture to get a point across. Journalists are taken advantage of when innocent civilians of Iraq and the troops that are still stationed there. Sure, we “lose from it,” but we also go to bed at night in a comfortable atmosphere. May we always remember those who have fought for our country, regardless of the circumstances, and who have lost something most valuable: their lives.