Egotistical Entitlement

It's undeniable that society requires the work of reporters who often place themselves in personal danger in the interests of uncovering information that clarifies situations, to educate and inform the news-reading public. It's the courage of many reporters who feel themselves required to go to extraordinary lengths to uncover details, often embarrassing to some political entity, some government bureaucrat, some social groups, some religious adherents, who hypocritically insist on their right to behave counter to social interests.

Often enough, in areas of conflict or general destabilization in countries whose governments are unable to provide safety for its own citizens, let alone for newshounds choosing to overstep the bounds of personal safety simply to break a high-profile news story with information that no other news media has been able to secure, reporters find themselves in danger. Some dauntless reporters, citizens of repressive regimes are threatened and finally murdered by henchmen of those whom they report upon.

And some reporters just seem to be inexplicably unable to grasp just how dangerous their personally-assigned mission can be, insisting, despite advice to the contrary, on embarking on a news-gathering expedition where more caution should be exercised than they are willing to submit to. Often enough, they not only place their own lives in direct danger, but the lives of locally-hired interpreters or drivers.

In the case of New York Times journalist Stephen Farrell - his derring-do won out, despite numerous security warnings that might have caused a better-balanced individual to think twice about embarking on a trip into an area charged with friction, and well represented by Taliban forces - those warnings were for naught. Journalists oblivious to the dangers they are forcing others into, disinterested in their personal well-being represent a special breed.

In Afghanistan, a medical doctor working in a large urban area can earn the equivalent of $100 a month to feed and house his family. Clearly an inadequate sum for an educated professional, let alone any working householder. That same medical doctor, changing his profession to one of interpreter or driver, can earn up to ten times that much and more, and many do engage in that switch, thinking they'll do it for a short while.

And each time they return from a dangerous mission they would prefer not to engage with, but do, because the news agency that hires them insists on it, they congratulate themselves for returning alive once again. Sultan Munadi, 34 years old, and a father of two children, acting as interpreter for Mr. Farrell, was not that fortunate. Nor was one of the British soldiers whom Britain charged with rescuing Mr. Farrell, after his abduction four days earlier.

Where he had set out with Mr. Munadi to reach the site of the German-ordered, U.S.-airstrike that blew up two Taliban-hijacked fuel tankers, that resulted in the deaths of 74 people, most of them civilians, and many of them children. Who were on site, hoping to drain some free fuel for themselves. That same rescue mission by British commandos also killed by inadvertence, a woman and a child.

As for Mr. Farrell, he escaped unscathed, to call the foreign editor at the Times with the great news: "I'm Out! I'm free!" Congratulations.