Lifespan of Journalists in FSU:

[mendeleyev]

Бюллетени Центра экстремальной журналистики
(Bulletin of the Center for Extreme/Dangerous Journalism)

(CBS/AP)
Russia has become a deadly place for journalists who run afoul of government officials or their business and political partners.

Those behind the killings, though, are rarely brought to justice, reinforcing a sense of impunity that may have encouraged the killers of Anna Politkovskaya, a fierce critic of the war in Chechnya.

As the European Union and the U.S. demanded a thorough probe into Saturday's contract-style killing, there was skepticism that the authorities would ever uncover the culprits of the latest in a series of killings of journalists in Russia under President Vladimir Putin, who has been increasingly accused of rolling back post-Soviet freedoms since coming to power in 2000.

The skepticism was underlined by the $929,700 reward for information that Novaya Gazeta has offered, signaling stronger faith in their own investigative efforts than those promised by the government, which has produced so few prosecutions before.

“Russia is a uniquely hostile place for the execution of independent journalism. It is both violent and repressive,” said Joel Simon, executive director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Politkovskaya's editors said she had been due to publish an investigative article on Monday about torture and kidnappings in Chechnya based on witness accounts and photos of tortured bodies.  CBS News correspondent Russ Mitchell reported Sunday that Politkovskaya knew well that her work put her in danger.


International Herald Tribune
MOSCOW: The largest society of independent journalists in Russia, long critical of the Kremlin's curtailment of the independent news media and its substitution with propaganda, on Friday defied a government eviction notice and said it would try to remain in its offices in spite of state pressure.

The refusal by the society, the Russian Union of Journalists, to follow the government's order marked a moment of resistance to a fresh round of crackdowns on the independent news media here.

It occurred as all of the radio correspondents for the Russian News Service, a network that provides broadcasts heard at the top of every hour on radio stations across the country, announced that they had resigned in protest of new network policies that censor news and require the airing of pro-Kremlin material.

Independent news reporting, which flourished after the collapse of the Soviet Union and included courageous reporting on themes like corruption, poverty, public health and the wars in Chechnya, has sharply declined under President Vladimir Putin. Critics of the Kremlin say that opposition views are now at risk of disappearing from the public discourse.

In place of diverse opinions and perspectives, the three national television networks have been brought under the state's influence or outright control, and Russia Today, a state-run global television channel, was created in 2005 to promote pro-Kremlin views in formats that resemble modern news broadcasts.

A few news Web sites, a shrinking pool of independent newspapers, all with limited circulations, and a sole radio station, Ekho Moskvi, provide almost all of the remaining alternative insights and public dissent.

Foreign radio material has been restricted or blocked from most Russian frequencies across the country. Parliament, at the request of the country's top prosecutor and law enforcement arm, is considering restrictions on the Internet, which could further limit choices for audiences seeking uncensored content.

The latest crackdowns have take a range of forms, including direct police action, the policy at Russian News Service requiring journalists to air content deemed "positive" by managers friendly to the Kremlin, and the eviction notice to the journalists' union, which occupies space in a state-owned building.


CNN
MOSCOW, Russia (AP) -- A television journalist was found dead in a Moscow apartment Friday with a belt around his neck and numerous stab wounds -- a grisly murder that reinforces Russia's image as one of the most dangerous countries for reporters.

Hours after the body of Ilyas Shurpayev was discovered, an executive in charge of the provincial state TV station in his home region of Dagestan was shot to death by unidentified men, and police were looking for links between the two killings.

More than a dozen journalists have been killed since 2000. Many appear to have been targeted because of their attempts to dig into allegations of corruption.

Charges have rarely been filed, including in the 2006 slaying in Moscow of Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative reporter who won acclaim for her reporting of atrocities against civilians in war-scarred Chechnya.  Shurpayev worked for Channel One, a station controlled by the Kremlin.

The Russian Interior Ministry branch in Dagestan said Shurpayev's slaying could be linked to the killing later in the day of Gadzhi Abashilov, chief of the state-controlled regional TV company based in Makhachkala, Dagestan. The office wouldn't comment on possible motives.



DANGEROUS PROFESSION
Weekly bulletin of events in mass media of CIS states
Issue No. 49 (202), November 28 - December 4, 2005

This bulletin was prepared by CJES analyst Irada Guseinova (gusja@cjes.ru)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 I. Attacks and Threats against Journalists

Georgia
Imeretia Governor Akaky Bobokhidze beat up journalist Irakly Imnaishvili in during televised debates in the Kutaisi television company Rioni on December 1.

“The main issue of the debate was freedom of speech, but the debates did not take place as the governor was offended by the journalist’s words and left the studio,” said Rioni director Tamila Gvinianidze.

Bobokhidze resigned immediately after the fight with Imnaishvili.

Imnaishvili hosted the analytical program Na Grani Vybora (broadcast by Mze television), which has been closed several times. The journalist believe it was closed for its criticism of the authorities.


Kazakhstan
Aset Kundakbayev, a cameraman with the program Reider, was beaten up while filming a fire in the Akzhar market in Almaty on November 27. According to his colleague Asel Yelemesova, “three civilian-clothed men came running from behind a car. Without introducing themselves, they knocked the cameraman down and began beating him, trying to get his camera.”

The cameraman sustained multiple bruises and his camera was broken as a result of the attack. A criminal case has been opened.


II. Detentions and Arrests of Journalists

Kazakhstan/Ukraine
According to a report issued by the Kazakh Young People’s Information Service, four migration police officers led by Major Vyacheslav Popov visited its office on November 22 and tried to get passports from Ihor Markin and Viktor Shtepa, journalists with the newspaper Ratusha, who are citizens of Ukraine. The journalists are accredited with the Kazakh Foreign Ministry and were visiting Kazakhstan to cover the presidential elections when the incident occurred.

The police officers said they were looking for illegal migrants and needed to confiscate the journalists’ passports as they were not in the place stated in their registration. Three of the four officers did not introduce themselves, citing the secrecy of their work. However, the journalists demanded a prosecutor’s warrant and a confiscation protocol, which the police officers did not have. Markin and Shtepa were eventually asked to come to the Almaty migration police department the next day. When they arrived there on November 23, Karlygash Dzhamankulova, general director of the Kazakh Young People's Information Service, and observers from the Human Rights Bureau who were accompanying her tried to find out the reasons why the police had been trying to take the journalist’s passports. Eventually, Dzhamankulova was told someone would call her and tell her, but no phone call followed.

The journalists believe the attempt to take their passports was made to put stamps in them saying their stay in Kazakhstan was limited to two days, which was done on November 30. The journalists tried to contest the police officers’ actiosn by going to the Almaty District Court, but their attempt failed as the court did not work on that day. On December 3, the journalists went to the migration police department and requested that their stay in Kazakhstan be prolonged. However, instead of answering their request, police officers detained them and took them to the Medeus district migration police department, where they were charged with failure to leave Kazakhstan within a required period of time. The case materials were forwarded to the Almaty Interregional Administrative Court, which on December 3 found the Ukrainians guilty of violating the regulations governing the stay of a foreign citizen or a person without a citizenship in Kazakhstan. The journalists were sentenced to five days of arrest.


Moldova
Yevgeny Sholar, a leader of the opposition association Anti-Bureaucratic Action League, was arrested and put in custody for thirty days on December 3.

Sholar is also chairman of the Chisinau office of the public organization NBP and editor of the opposition publication Trety Put.

The arrest is connected to the investigation into the events that took place during an opposition rally in Chisinau on May 1. According to Moldovan media reports, rally participants and the journalists who covered it were openly threatened with persecution and arrest if they did not stop their political and journalistic activities.

The Anti-Bureaucratic Action League’s headquarters was closed on October 15, and the NBP website experienced a hackers’ attack on October 19.


III. Lawsuits against Journalists

Armenia
The weekly publication Iranvuk on December 2 published the following material: “According to sources close to ArmenTel, the Prosecutor General’s Office has requested to receive transcripts of all phone conversations of the most informed opposition journalists every two hours beginning November 24. Our source assumes the purpose of this move is to locate the authorities releasing confidential information on the administration and upcoming ’secret’ steps.”


Belarus
Pavel Krasovsky, publisher of the non-state newspaper Nablyudatel and an activist of the People’s Front movement, was summoned to come to a police station in Zhodino for questioning on November 25, says a November 28 news report.

Nablyudatel has a circulation of 299 copies. It publishes materials on events taking place in Zhodino with emphasis on the socio-economic situation of the town’s residents.


***

The Minsk Pervomaisky Court on December 2 ordered Alfa Radio and its program director Dmitry Shunin, the defendants in a defamation lawsuit filed by two Minsk residents, to pay the plaintiffs 700,000 and 900,000 rubles, respectively. The court also ordered Alfa-Radio to air an apology to the plaintiffs.

The lawsuit was filed over a practical joke aired on the morning program Kukuruznik-show in September 2005. The practical joke, which involved the defendants’ private lives, had been aired live two years later, but no reaction followed then. The plaintiffs were seeking 35 million rubles in moral damages.


Georgia
The lawyers for journalist Tamaz Bakuradze, who has been sentenced to six years in prison for embezzlement of state money during his tenure as director of the regional television company Adzhara in 1998-2001, are accusing the court of violating the law and have contested the sentence by filing an appeal, says a November 30 news report.

In accordance with the legislation, the court was to try the case within 1.5 months (the lawsuit was filed in July, and therefore the deadline for considering an appeal expired on September 1). However, the trial has not begun yet, which is a major violation of the law on the part of the court of appeals.

The lawyers believe the reason why it is happening is that the prosecution is unable to support its contentions as no real evidence of Bakuridze’s guilt was provided during the trial.


Kyrgyzstan
The Naryn City Court on November 30 began the trial of the defamation lawsuit filed by Colonel Bakyt Bekbolotov against the independent radio station Almaz-Radio.

The lawsuit was filed over an analytical program entitled Nasha Zhizn, which aired on October 7. The program dealt with a trip made by Defense Minister Ismail Isakov to the Naryn region for inspection purposes. The plaintiff found the report to be defamatory to him and estimated his moral damages at 500,000 soms (12,500).

Justice Zamira Amrakulova encouraged the parties to look for a compromise. If they do not come to an agreement, the trial will continue on December 2.


Tajikistan
The Dushanbe Court Presidium on November 27 considered the appeal filed by Mukhtor Bokizoda, editor—in-chief of the newspaper Nerui Sukhan, against the ruling issued by the Dushanbe Firdavsi Court on August 25. The ruling was left unchanged.


Uzbekistan
The publication of the independent newspaper ADVOKAT PRESS has been suspended over repeated violations of the laws on the mass media, says a December 2 news report. The Tashkent department of the Press and Information Agency has denied the information that the paper was closed for publishing materials criticizing and said the paper will be able to continue its operations after the flaws in its work, which have been brought to its attention, are rectified.

Almal Akromov, the head of the Tashkent department of the Press and Information Agency, said the paper has a circulation of only some 2,000 copies and only eighty subscribers. “We do not rule out that the paper’s administration and journalists are trying to use the situation with the fully legal suspension of the publication to attract attention to increase its circulation, which I believe is a major violation of journalistic ethics,” Akromov said.


Ukraine
The weekly publication Zerkalo Nedeli on December 3 published a court ruling in the lawsuit filed by the joint stock company Giprosvyaz against Leonid Khorin, the author of an article run by Zerkalo Nedeli on February 14, 2004.

The court partially granted the plaintiff’s claims, including the request to refute some things stated in the article, to publish a refutation without any editorial and other comments within a period of one month, to publish the resolution part of the court ruling (beginning from the words “the court has decided” to the end of the text), and to recover from Zerkalo Nedeli and the author of the article a state duty in an amount of 8.5 hryvnas.

[mendeleyev]

(continued)

IV. Other Forms of Pressure on the Media. Conflicts with the Authorities and Political Organizations


Armenia
Radio Liberty suddenly stopped broadcasts to Yerevan in the evening on November 27. In particular, listeners were unable to hear reports on the opinions of the opposition and reports from polling stations.

Radio Liberty has received numerous complaints and has apologized to its audience, saying it was not to blame for the problems with broadcasts. Radio Liberty also expressed hopes that the problem was a purely technical one.
Grach Melkumyan, director of the Yerevan office of Radio Liberty, said the signal from Prague had been received with no problems, but broadcasts to Yerevan had stopped on all frequencies at once. “This leads us to assume that our radio station was taken off the air deliberately,” he said.


Belarus
Belsoyuzpechat has informed the editors-in-chief of the non-state newspapers Salidarnasts and Zgoda that it will not work with the papers in 2006,

In its letters to the editors, Belsoyuzpechat said the contracts for the dissemination and delivery of retail copies of the papers end on December 31, 2005 and “are not subject to prolongation.” The reasons for this decision are not mentioned in the papers.

In addition, Belsoyuzpechat has refused to disseminate the newspaper Gazeta Slonimskaya. The paper’s editor-in-chief Viktor Voloshchuk has received a letter signed by the deputy director of the Grodno office of Belsoyuzpechat, which said that the contract for the dissemination and delivery of Gazeta Slonimskaya is terminated as of December 31, 2005.


Kyrgyzstan
Bakyt Orunbekov, editor-in-chief of the state-run newspaper Kyrgyztuusu, said on December 2 he is experiencing pressure from the governmental administration. He says the reason for that pressure is the address published by the paper in early November (which was signed by 2,000 people) and an article written by Kyrgyztuusu reporter Kalil Zhamgyrchinov criticizing the Kyrgyz prime minister

Orunbekov says the head of the governmental administration has demanded that he stop publishing materials criticizing the prime minister. The official said Kyrgyztuusu could not publish such materials as it is an official newspaper of the Kyrgyz government.

“In addition, R. Daudova, an official with the governmental press service, made it very clear to me that the prime minister has the right to appoint and dismiss the paper’s editor-in-chief,” Orunbekov said.


Ukraine/Crimea
According to a November 30 news report, Oleksandr Gress, chairman of the Crimean organization of the Republican Party of Ukraine, has asked the Crimean prosecutor’s office to conduct a probe into the hindrance of the legal professional activities of journalists with the newspaper Kirovets by officials from the Kirov district council and to protect the paper’s acting editor-in-chief Svetlana Nizhegorodova from their illegal actions.

In his report, Gress said the Republican Party of Ukraine has a contract with Kirovets to publish its information materials. In late October, the party asked the paper to publish information material entitled Open Letter to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko. However, the letter was not published at the agreed time. According to Nizhegorodova, Kirov District Council Chairman Mikhail Ivanov personally prohibited the publication of this material.

Ivanov has confirmed that he has put pressure on the paper in an interview aired on Crimea television on November 4th.

Kirovets still published the open letter a week later. After that, Ivanov accused the paper of publishing materials without consulting with the district council. Ibet Shevketov deputy chairman of the council, threatened Nizhegorodova personally.

V. Restrictions of Access to Information

Georgia
The Georgian mass media are complaining they are having to deal with more and more obstacles when they try to get information from public establishments, says a November 28 news report.

“Getting information in Georgia is becoming a virtually unrealistic task for journalists,” said Alyona Imedashvili, the head of the information agency Novosti-Georgia.

“It has recently become much more difficult to obtain information from state establishments without personal contacts,” said Eka Saatashvili, a reporter for Fortuna radio. She said she was referring primarily to ministries, the parliament, and the state chancellor’s office.

“Press services either do not release information to reporters or release it, but cut a lot of cuts,” said Demna Chagelishvili, director of the information agency Prime News. Journalists have the hardest time obtaining information from the Interior, Foreign, and Defense Ministries, and also the presidential press service, he said.


Kyrgyzstan
Tugolbai Mamayev, chief doctor of the Osh region’s AIDS Center, has refused to provide journalist Bakyt Ibraimov with information on the death of one of the twin brothers who was infected with HIV during blood transfusion because of the negligence of the Osh region’s children’s hospital and the Osh regional blood center, says a November 30 news report.

The parliamentary committee on defense, security, law and order, and information policy on November 30 postponed the discussion of the issue of accrediting another thirty journalists to cover the work of the parliament.

According to parliamentarian Kanybek Imanaliyev, the reason for that is that “according to the list, many of the people seeking accreditation have no relation to journalism.” He also said there are many officials with foreign representations in Kyrgyzstan among the accredited people, who “may pose a potential threat to state security as they may be working for foreign special services.”

Over sixty journalists are currently accredited with the Kyrgyz parliament.


Journalists' Union of Russia
4, Zubovsky blvd.
119021 MOSCOW
Tel: 7-095-201 51 01
Fax: 7-095-200 42 3

Russian Journalist Code of Ethics:  http://www.uta.fi/ethicnet/russia.html

[Manny]

After 15 Years of Killing Journalists Pentagon Writes It Into Manual

Having liberally assassinated journalists from Yugoslavia to Iraq to Libya Pentagon has done the logical next step and openly wrote the practice into its code of conduct

Four weeks into NATO’s 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia American bombs slammed into Belgrade’s main television station massacring 16 employees of Serbia’s state television broadcaster (RTS).

All killed were civilians but these were the 1990s. Sloban Milošević was “Adolph Hitler” and Serbs were “his willing executioners”. Serbian civilian deaths didn’t matter. Thus BOOM! Program director dead, security guard dead, electrician dead, cameraman dead, sound technician dead, make up lady dead…

Tony Blair and a host of NATO spokespeople appeared before cameras to explain these people deserved to die - they were part of Milošević’s “machinery of hate”. No bombs hit them in turn.

RTS had been covering Serbia’s civilian deaths caused by NATO but this wasn’t the reason it was hit - as said nobody really cared and besides RTS had been taken off satellite by NATO and could no longer broadcast beyond Yugoslavia. However, NATO’s strategy in the war had been to make the life of Serbian civilians so miserable they would beg Milošević to capitulate - and RTS’ mix of airing patriotic music videos and reports of NATO carnage was doing a decent job of propping up Serb morale and resolve.

RTS was inerfering with NATO’s strategy - it was giving the Serbian populace a measure of comfort and strength - this made it a top target of those who needed it broken.

Next stop Iraq. April 8th 2003 American tanks finally smashed into downtown Baghdad - Iraq had been conquered. Americans marked the occasion by opening fire on journalists in three separate locations in the city.

Offices of Qatar’s Al-Jazeera were hit by an air strike. Offices of United Arab Emirates Abu Dhabi satellite channel likewise. Finally a US tank fired into the Palestine Hotel - Bagdad’s more well-known hotel and a well-known base for foreign journalists. In all Americans’ attacks on journalists that day killed three and wounded four.

This was just the beginning. Iraq became a veritable killing ground for journalists including due to attacks by American occupiers. In the first two years of the occupation alone 13 journalists are known to have been killed by American fire.

Most famously in 2007 a US helicopter crew deliberately gunned down two Iraqi reporters for Reuters along with a dozen other civilians - this was the so called “collateral murder” incident later brought to light and made famous by WikiLeaks.

Throughout the Iraq occupation US bitterly complained about reporting done by Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiyah. It accused them of inflaming the Arab street against the US and helping to fuel the Sunni resistance in Iraq.

The two were repeatedly banned from reporting from Iraq by the US-installed government in Baghdad. Likewise in 2004 the US launched the Al-Hurra Arab-language satellite channel to try to rival the two.

Finally, during the 2011 NATO bombing of Libya the alliance repeated its performance during the bombing of Yugoslavia and deliberately took out a Libyan TV compound slaying three journalists.

It may be the case that US military has only now produced a “law of war manual” explaining its policy of killing journalists, but it is the case it has been at it for at least 15 years.

The thing to understand is that Pentagon has convinced itself that media has dealt it its greatest defeat in history - the hugely traumatic loss in the Vietnam War. In Pentagon’s retelling of the Vietnam debacle journalists delivered a fatal stab in the back of a war effort that was on the cusp of turning things around.

The problem according to US military wasn’t so much US atrocities and real strategic setbacks, but the fact the knowledge of these was spread by journalists to the people at home.

That is to say the main lesson Pentagon drew from the Vietnam War was the need to control information coming out from the war zone. Military thinkers spent the next two decades thinking about the ways to accomplish this and eventually perfected it into an art form.

Thus the highly managed and highly favorable coverage of US military invasion of Iraq - served up by embeded journalists assigned to this or that unit of the US military. But if embeding journalists showed to just what degree they may be tamed it also served to highlight how unfriendly and dangerous (at least in the Pentagon’s imagination) the remaining independent journalists were by comparison.

In Pentagon’s thinking an independent journalist threatens its control of information coming out of the war zone and therefore threatens “the mission” - that above all is what really makes it a “legitimate” target.

The rest, the nonsense about “unprivileged belligerents” and what not - that’s just sophistry and mumbo jumbo to obscure the fact that US military - the armed force of the “land of the free and the home of the brave” believes in murdering civilian non-combatants.

Links to back up stories at the source

[msmoby]

Manny shoots himself in the foot.

As Mendy and others kept pointing out .. the Kremlin were even less choosy about their targets in Chechniya.

YES, NATO took out Milsovovic's mouth-piece and innocent civilians were killed while crossing bridges and minding their won business in what is now modern day Serbia. Most people in Belgrade were not aware of the NATO ultimatum and were shocked when the infrastructure was attacked.

I was a Brit living abroad in an Orthodox country and Brits were hated.

I know the UK guy responsible for the UK integration of the Tomahawk project - I attended a talk at a sailing club - where he was the host - and targeting was done to minimise casualties.

Lest you forget.. he was not too keen on 'losing' Kosovo and whilst the likes of the KLA were no 'angels' nor were parts of the 'rump' Yugoslavian forces - hence the NATO intervention.

I have no idea if all your reports are accurate - any more than many atrocities in Russia were carried out to change public opinion and blame Chechens.

[Volshe]

Four weeks into NATO’s 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia American bombs slammed into Belgrade’s main television station massacring 16 employees of Serbia’s state television broadcaster (RTS).

All killed were civilians but these were the 1990s. Sloban Milošević was “Adolph Hitler” and Serbs were “his willing executioners”. Serbian civilian deaths didn’t matter. Thus BOOM! Program director dead, security guard dead, electrician dead, cameraman dead, sound technician dead, make up lady dead…

Tony Blair and a host of NATO spokespeople appeared before cameras to explain these people deserved to die - they were part of Milošević’s “machinery of hate”. No bombs hit them in turn.

I knew her, she was a friend of a friend of mine  Very sweet girl, absolutely apolitical.

[cdnexpat]

Unfortunately, the killing of journalists is a big thing, and spanning many countries. During my last two years in Afghanistan, I witnessed a few killings, that struck very close.
In January 2014, there was an attack in a Lebanese restaurant, the Taverna, where high ranking UN and IMF officials were having dinner. It at first looked like a taliban attack. Then, when one FSU country did a post mortem on its citizen who was killed, it became soon evident that it had nothing to do with Talibans. The persons had been killed with a frag bullet, which leaves no traces of the weapon it was fired from. These bullets are used by special service forces, ie, spies. It was found out that everyone in the restaurant, had received the same bullets in the head. Of course, there were bullets fired from Kalashnikovs, all over the place.
Further investigations revealed that the attackers were not alone. Yes, they detonated a small bomb outside the restaurant, but there was a double gate system in place. I know, I had been there not long before. It was then found out that someone opened the second gate, so that the attackers could come inside, and spray bullets, on dead corpses. Overall, 21 people were killed in that attack.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-25790747

Then, on the 11 March, a AFP journalist, Nils Horner, while investigating the shooting at the Lebanese restaurant, was shot in broad daylight, bullet in the head, as he was getting close to conduct an interview with a young cook, the only living witness of the attack on the Taverna.
http://time.com/19613/journalist-shot-dead-in-afghanistan/

It was later announced that the shooter used a pistol, and shot him in the head. Surveillance cameras showed a man running away, in a track suit. Not very Afghan, if you ask me.
Then, on the 21 March, there was another attack, this time at the Serena Hotel, in Kabul, where the victims were journalists, also working for AFP. The hotel also had a very secure entry system, but it was announced that the killers carried weapons in their shoes. Many people bought into that. The fact is that there were people inside already, waiting for an outside explosion, to start killing their targets. bullets in the head for everyone, again. AFP guys again. I knew Sardar Ahmad. We ha d some interviews planned together in previous times.
http://time.com/33102/afp-reporter-sardar-ahmad-killed-in-kabul/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/swedish-journalist-nils-horner-murdered-executionstyle-in-kabul-as-afghanistan-prepares-for-fresh-violence-ahead-of-its-presidential-elections-9184837.html
This is not Taliban style at all.

And then, later, near where I was working, there was this shooting of an AP reporter, who also knew the AFP people. She was even killed by a police officer.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/04/us-afghanistan-journalists-idUSBREA330D220140404

Subsequent quick investigation provided evidence that all these people knew too much.
my sources told me that the first deaths could be linked to special forces from western, or Israeli spies. That is their type of operations. A frag bullet in the head makes it impossible to find out which type of pistol fired it. It just disintegrates.
And since my friends, the first ones killed, were involved in negotiations with talibans, they  had a lot of inside information. That was enough to have them killed. Even more, that was enough to order the killings of journalists investigating their deaths.

Sorry, but if anyone want to try to tell me that the FSU, China, or any other country is dangerous for journalists, I can only say that the US is the worst place. They have the worst record. Israel is next. 

[Anteros]

Cdnexpat,

That was certainly one of the more interesting posts I've ever read here.  I will admit to thinking and believing that journalists in the USA were completely safe.  On the mainland I will still likely cling to this notion.  However in a war zone there is obviously a clear and present danger.