A journalist reflects on a lost friend and the many journalists who have been killed and injured.
 | By Tenzin D. Tsagong Editorial Assistant, Special Projects, Opinion |
It's a cruel fact of war that at any moment, a journalist covering the story could become part of it. Another casualty. Another headline. And yet war journalism has perhaps never been more dangerous or more important. |
Since the Israel-Gaza war began on Oct. 7, over 60 journalists and media personnel have been killed — the deadliest conflict for journalists since the Committee to Protect Journalists began tracking such data 30 years ago. In comparison, in the nearly two years of the war in Ukraine, 17 journalists and media workers have been killed. |
Perhaps none are more aware of and prepared for the perils of war reporting than journalists themselves. Nonetheless, the reporter Lama Al-Arian writes in a guest essay for Opinion that nothing could have prepared her for the death of her friend Issam Abdallah, a Reuters video journalist who was killed in southern Lebanon on Oct. 13 after an airstrike from the direction of the Israeli border struck him and other journalists. Moments before his death, they were reporting on increasing skirmishes since Oct. 7 between Hezbollah and the Israel Defense Forces. |
Al-Arian's essay is a moving tribute to her friend and his fervent commitment to reporting the truth, even when it meant risking his life. It's also a story of their friendship, of her grief and of the collective need to bear witness during a time like this. |
Most important, it is a demand to protect our fellow journalists in Gaza, especially as more and more continue to risk their lives, increasingly unconvinced that the vests marked "Press" that they wear are the guarantor of safety that they should be. |
As Al-Arian reminds us, it's only because of the courage of journalists like Abdallah that we have the brutal and unvarnished images of war that we do — the images of tiny bodies covered in white burial shrouds, of young children weeping and grieving after their dead parents, of a child's leg wedged between bricks, dangling in the air. |
As a member of the media, I keep grappling with these questions: What do we owe our frontline journalists? What does it mean to do right by them when our very work relies on their endangerment? I'm not sure what that entails, but I'm grateful that Al-Arian's words so powerfully put into words the urgency of this moment and the heavy responsibility we all have to protect our journalists. |
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