Opinion: Evan Gershkovich is home, but journalists are still in danger
My personal journalism journey began in 2018 when I was invited by a friend to visit Mainland China to see a bitcoin mining farm. I didn’t go to China on behalf of any media outlet, nor did I even truly understand what I hoped to accomplish in my time abroad — I was simply a curious guy who wanted to learn about how crypto miners were operating in a country I’d never been to.
However, this adventure soon spiraled into a hobby before eventually morphing into a career; a profession I’m immensely proud to be a part of despite the vitriol and public animus we often endure. Sadly, over the past six years, I’ve watched that public animosity transform into apathy and, subsequently, distrust and hatred.
I’m not only worried for the state of journalism, I’m worried for journalists across the globe.
Let’s talk about Evan Gershkovich
Most recently, Evan Gershkovich was released from a Russian prison in exchange for a number of known Russian criminals and spies. What was Gershkovich guilty of? Being an American reporter in the authoritarian dictatorship that is Russia.
When Gershkovich was released, I joined in the celebration with my fellow journalists, but what was shocking and disturbing to me was the general public sentiment that reporters should be more responsible about where they’re reporting from and the US probably shouldn’t be making prisoner exchanges for journalists who get in over their heads.
This is disconcerting.
On one hand, some will gladly suggest that much of journalism is just biased opinions being passed along and reprinted — that there’s very little fact-finding and much more agenda-pushing.
On the other, when a journalist goes to a foreign dictatorship to find the truth by doing the most old-school version of journalism that exists — boots on the ground interviewing — they are mocked and ridiculed for getting into a situation they are unable to get out of.
The public is disparaging journalists for not being proper journalists and for being the most serious, important types of professionals they can be. You cannot have it both ways.
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More journalists than ever are being arrested and killed
While charts show that there was a downtrend of journalist fatalities between 2012 and 2023, everything has changed in 2024. So far this year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 113 journalists have been killed. This number is expected to climb before the end of December and, in all likelihood, more journalists will die in 2024 than any previous year on record.
(We do need to caveat these figures by pointing out that every single murdered journalist this year has been in Palestine, Lebanon, or Israel.)
Meanwhile, between 2014 and 2019 nearly 1,500 journalists were arrested and 400 were kidnapped. It turns out that while many people enjoy pointing out all the mistakes and opinions put out by journalists, few care about the thousands of reporters who have been killed, injured, or arrested/kidnapped for simply sharing knowledge with the world.
There are very real consequences for highly effective journalism. For example, Daphne Caruana Galizia, a Maltese journalist, was blown up for reporting on government corruption and criminal financial dealings. While Galizia’s life was taken almost seven years ago, the fallout from her reporting is quite literally still having massive repercussions in Malta to this day.
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In defense of the fourth estate
It’s been a popular trope to blame ‘fake news’ and the ‘lame stream media’ for tearing society apart, as though every journalist and news outlet is working together to destroy the globe and life as we know it. I can promise you that almost none of these people have ever worked in a newsroom.
Protos is a small newsroom — a blip compared to the massive, multi-continent-spanning media outlets defined as mainstream media, like CNN or Fox News — but even with only a handful of reporters and editors it’s nearly impossible to get us to agree on any opinions and we’re certainly not organized enough to push any agenda.
Is Protos adversarial? I hope so. Do we make fewer mistakes than major media outlets? Yes, mainly because we put out less news. Are we purposely trying to destroy any industry, company, or individual? Absolutely not, nor do I believe that’s ever the goal of any media outlet worth its weight.
I get that it’s much easier to blame media outlets for doing what’s demanded of them and ridicule journalists for either not being professional enough or caring too much about a story instead of their safety, but I hope the public sentiment shifts before we see an end to journalism as we know it.
Legacy media outlets are all having their ‘come to God’ moments as advertising money continues to dry up and AI summaries of news stories replace links to high-quality reporting. But before celebrating, realize that this isn’t just the death of newspapers or wealthy guys buying the truth. We are seeing the end of entire newsrooms; a decentralization of media that makes it more difficult to collaborate and carry out long-form investigations.
Most importantly, we’re seeing the collapse of legal protections for journalists by teams of lawyers that larger media outlets are able to keep on retainer.
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The byproduct of losing these protections and larger media outlets is both good and bad: the democratization of journalism is fantastic but individual journalists being silenced by strategic lawsuits against public participation isn’t.
So, before praising the end of an era and relentlessly stating that all journalists are bad, take a deep breath and reflect on the future you want — it might not be the one you’re going to get if the anti-fourth estate rhetoric continues unabated.
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