As I wound up my journalism degree I became more wary of war journalism, it is afterall, not for the light hearted. The US journalist Daniel Pearl was killed in an "act of barbarism." Ever since then, we have heard numerous stories of journalists being kidnapped in war torn areas. Family and friends have warned me from entering such a hazardous career, and I am still undecided.
Hugh Barnes, my professor at University was a war correspondent and he seems to have survived. The stories I have heard from him enthrall me and I have massive amount of respect for every journalist who throws themselves in a war zone in order to report facts.
I once had an argument with a bunch of PR students, who believed the gruesome details of war should not be reported! For some one who lives on freedom of speech even in my everyday life, this was a shock! Such a harsh statement grilled through many of the journalists students present in the room, and in the end we showed them who was the boss !!!
In the last few months I worked at the BBC, met journalists from all aspects of the field, heard talks from BBC security correspondent Gordon Correra, shared Skittles with Adam Holloway, who was a senior reporter at ITN covering issues in Bosnia, and Afghanistan, and is currently a Member of Parliament. The more I meet such interesting journalists the more I want to be one of the them.
On March 12, BBC correspondent, Alan Johnston was abducted from Gaza and since then a Palestinian group, Army of Islam has taken responsibility. The group has demanded the release of Abu Qatada. For those who don't know Abu Qatada, he is the "spiritual ambassador in Europe" of Osama Bin Laden and is currently behind bars. As someone who has been pre-warned about joining the field of war journalism, my heart goes out to the family and friends of Alan Johnston. I have signed on a petition calling on anyone who has any influence on the situation to increase their efforts to secure his return. It would be great, if you could click on the following link and do the same. You may be from a different country and might not have even heard of Alan Johnston, but I urge you to sign up, as he is one of us, and noone deserves to be treated this way just for doing his job.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6518185.stm
The BBC are doing everything to keep us updated, and if you want to know more please visit the site. The Government are in talks with Abu Qatada to appeal to the Army of Islam to release Alan Johnston. Thank you for signing up. Please help spread the word, a little help could go a long way.
