UN-Truth

In an editorial a few days ago, the NYTimes put the spotlight on the recent “courage in journalism award” that he International Women’s Media Foundation gave to six Iraqi women who work for the McClatchy Newspapers bureau in Baghdad.

The NYT reproduced remarks made in an acceptance speech by Sahar Issa, on behalf of all six women:

“…[S]ince the war started, four and half years ago, an average of about one reporter and media assistant killed every week is something we have to live with.

“We live double lives. None of our friends or relatives know what we do. My children must lie about my profession. They cannot under any circumstance boast of my accomplishments, and neither can I. Every morning, as I leave my home, I look back with a heavy heart, for I may not see it again — today may be the day that the eyes of an enemy will see me for what I am, a journalist, rather than the appropriately bewildered elderly lady who goes to look after ailing parents, across the river every day. Not for a moment can I let down my guard.

“I smile as I give my children hugs and send them off to school; it’s only after they turn their backs to me that my eyes fill to overflowing with the knowledge that they are just as much at risk as I am.

“So why continue? Why not put down my proverbial pen and sit back? It’s because I’m tired of being branded a terrorist: tired that a human life lost in my county is no loss at all. This is not the future I envision for my children. They are not terrorists, and their lives are not valueless. I have pledged my life — and much, much more, in an effort to open a window through which the good people in the international community may look in and see us for what we are, ordinary human beings with ordinary aspirations, and not what we have been portrayed to be.

The NY Times editorial with excerpts from remarks made by Iraqi journalist Sahar Issa is here.

Filed under: Iraq, Journalism and Journalists