The Unsung Heroes

As we watch the events unfolding during battles around the world, all too often we forget the human price paid for the images.

Journalists, film crews and photographers have provided an almost all-seeing eye for the atrocities and miracles that occur daily, and enabled the education and update of arm-chair viewers that may never visit, meet, or learn of such events otherwise.

Yet the price they pay is high: last year alone, at least eighty-one journalists were killed in twenty-one countries while doing their job or for expressing their opinion.

It was also the highest annual toll since 1994, when 103 died. Thirty-two media assistants (fixers, drivers, translators, technicians, security staff) were also killed in 2006, compared to only five the previous year.

According to Reporters Sans Frontiers, in 2006:

• 81 journalists and 32 media assistants were killed;
• at least 871 were arrested;
• 1,472 physically attacked or threatened;
• 56 kidnapped;
• and 912 media outlets censored.

While in 2005:

• 63 journalists and 5 media assistants were killed;
• at least 807 were arrested;
• 1,308 physically attacked or threatened;
• and 1,006 media outlets censored.

With the figures for 2007 as yet uncompleted, it is likely that the figures will rise again, making recent years the most deadly for reporters.

The latest fatality was caught on camera and captures the tragic, yet dogged, determination of reporters and photographers to allow the truth to emerge into the public arena.

When the Burmese military opened fire on thousands of protesters yesterday, Japanese journalist Kenji Nagai held aloft his camera and continued to take photos despite being fatally wounded.

As a soldier put a gun to his chest, he continued to his last moment.

Nagai was one of at least nine people killed when the troops opened fire, while a further eleven were reported injured.

The 52-year-old Japanese photographer was working for APF news agency and had been covering the protests since Tuesday.