Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
Jefferson would have especially valued Marie Colvin of the Sunday Times of London and Anthony Shadid of the New York Times, both of whom died this week in Syria.
Colvin was killed in a savage artillery bombardment of a residential neighborhood in Homs, Syria’s third city. In her last report, filed hours before she was killed, she explained to CNN’s Anderson Cooper why it was important to show video of a two-year old boy dying of shrapnel wounds to the chest.
“I feel very strongly that it should be shown. That’s the reality: there are 28,000 defenseless civilians being shelled. That baby will probably move more people to think ‘What is going on and why is no one stopping these murders that are going on every day?’
“The Syrian Army is shelling a city of cold, starving civilians.”
Shadid died of an asthma attack as he was walking out of Syria to file his latest report. He knew of the danger he faced, and was frightened by it. He told NPR’s Terry Gross that he persisted when there was a story that was important for the world to know. He had been shot and wounded in 2002 while covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After reporting from Tunisia and Egypt, he moved on to Libya, where he was kidnapped and beaten by government forces. Not long after, he knowingly risked his life again to sneak into Syria, where he was reporting on the resistance movement when he died.
Both Colvin and Shadid knew real courage—to be filled with fear and still go on. The world is richer because of reporters like them.
