Dangerous Times Globally for Journalists

I’ve been putting off writing this blog post because I really don’t want to write it.

I don’t like writing about a journalist being raped and murdered for trying to cover totalitarian regimes.

I hate writing about a Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi going into the Saudi embassy in Turkey to get documents he needs to get married and is never seen going out of the embassy.

I don’t like writing about and linking to reports that the Saudi columnist for the Washington Post was reportedly tortured, killed and cut up so his body could be smuggled out of the embassy by a Saudi hit squad.

(Note: Jason Rezaian is a Washington Post reporter who was held in a Iranian prison for a year and a half for reporting on the situation in Iran.)

I don’t like writing about stories that say that U.S. intelligence may have known about the plot to attack this journalist and did nothing about it.

I don’t like writing about the dangers journalists face reporting within the United States.

I hate the fact that I’m just barely starting to take notes on ideas for the eighth edition of my media literacy textbook, and these first notes are all about violence directed against journalists.

I hate that a columnist for an American newspaper has likely been murdered by another country’s government, and we’re all: