USA added to list of most dangerous countries for journalists

by kevmo on 12/21/2018, 12:49 PM with 43 comments
  • by Brendinooo on 12/21/2018, 1:29 PM

    For what it's worth, the word "dangerous" never appears in the report, unless my Find feature isn't working well in the PDF.

    "Dangerous" is a value judgment; the PDF is a report on journalists who were "killed, detained, held hostage, or missing." Note that this doesn't include harassment, another metric that could be possibly quantified and used to inform a theoretical "danger" ranking.

    I guess what I'm leaning towards is that NBC News has a lot of spin in this piece. The headline makes you think it's about the US. The lede cites Khashoggi and tries to conflate it with general hostility towards the media in the United States, but his death was a very different situation (and different country!). Then it cites the global figure without saying "worldwide" in the paragraph, while never explicitly saying that the total death count in the US is 6. The report also shows that zero journalists were jailed in the US and zero were taken hostage.

    I don't wish to minimize anyone's death. But the piece gives off a feeling that the US is becoming Saudi Arabia, yet the reason it's in this list at all is because of two events that don't really feel systemic: Capital Gazette, and hurricanes. (Could argue that mass shootings feel systemic in the US, but not mass shootings targeting journalists. No, I don't feel great trying to make that distinction.)

    ADDENDUM:

    How many people are working in the US as journalists? A quick search was tough to nail down. And, even with the mass shooting that hopefully proves to be a statistical anomaly, how does the deaths per 100,000 in the US compare to the 3.6 per 100,000 in the US's workplace at large?[0]

    Also, edited this to remove my confusion about where Khashoggi died.

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    [0]: https://247wallst.com/special-report/2018/01/02/25-most-dang...

  • by danielvf on 12/21/2018, 1:13 PM

    This list is by actual deaths during the year, not a prediction of future danger or government policies. The US is on the list this year because of a mass shooting at a newspaper.

    The full PDF report is much more interesting than the article. https://rsf.org/sites/default/files/worldwilde_round-up.pdf

    The report also notes that worldwide journalist deaths are down, and for the first time in 15 years, no journalist deaths in Iraq.

  • by sys_64738 on 12/21/2018, 1:44 PM

    Khashoggi was killed in Turkey so does that really count as an American death? Perhaps the fact that the USA didn't impose sanctions on the country alleged to be involved influenced that view.