Female foreign correspondents - Code of silence is finally broken | Hacker News Reader

Female foreign correspondents - Code of silence is finally broken

propublica.org

28 pointssagarun14 comments

The problem with blaming a mob is exactly that. You're blaming a 7 year old and you can't really point a finger. I suppose blaming the victim is easier. It allows people to cope with an injustice that has them wonder what they would do if it was them. The first thing that comes to most people's mind is "I wouldn't go there, period", or "I would be extremely careful".

These are journalists and this is news. Their work requires that they go and report it. I like to believe that having done this for a while they are aware of the dangers and take some measures of precautions, but sometimes a bad call can change all this. It's not their fault, they're human.

However, saying that these journalists' bosses are clueless and that Ms. Logan speaking up might change their opinion when it comes to sending a female is a bit naive. They've also been doing this job long enough to have heard hush stories of what goes on in those remote areas in time of crisis, and what happens to journalists male or female.

What I would like to know is what steps are taken by news companies to ensure their people's security while in harms way to bring us those scoops. Why do we have to wait until the damage is done to start pondering on these questions? Also, I'm wondering if the bravado reporter's cliché isn't a little bit to blame for journalists taking abuses silently. Maybe the solution to the problem might even be really simple and has just never been introduced, because the culture has people believe that they need to wear their stigmas as a badge of honor to be considered for the journalism's pantheons.

I know this is probably a very unpopular opinion, but I'm going to say it: women reporters simply should not put themselves in this kind of danger. Journalists in general shouldn't feel the need to be somewhere their safety isn't secure. But the fact is women are at a much higher risk of assault in many situations because of their gender. Mobs of mostly angry men with no police presence around are precisely the places women shouldn't be. Is one's safety really worth a few more descriptive words of rose pedals and sacrificed goats?

In most cases the story isn't whats going on in the mob, but why the mob is there in the first place. One doesn't have to be physically in the middle of it to do excellent reporting. In fact, it seems to me that this idea is one of the problems with modern 'journalism'. It's completely superficial. Just throw your reporter in the middle of the hurricane, record them saying "wow its really windy" and you've done your job. I'll take real in depth reporting from the sidelines over sound-bites and photo-ops any day.

Perhaps you'd like to be the one to tell them they can't report in situations like this? I think your opinion is less likely to be popular with the reporters themselves.

Why is it your choice what level of danger anyone else, of any gender, chooses to put themselves in?

Why not decide that sky diving, or rock climbing, or automobile racing is too dangerous for anyone?

I never implied I think they should be disallowed from putting themselves in danger. I believe they should themselves choose not to. Further, any external pressures to put themselves in those positions should be removed, such as feeling like your career rests on you being on the front line.

Journalists in general shouldn't feel the need to be somewhere their safety isn't secure? Really?

I'm certainly glad they do it. That's how we get information and it's also a means of limiting atrocities (notice the targeting of journalists in Egypt, the expulsion of Al Jazeera one of the few news outlets regularly available to Egyptians).

And journalists can't do their job if they're standing on the outside looking in. Being in the mob is not limited to saying "there's a mob here", it's also how you establish and maintain contacts and sources.

Your opinion may be "Very unpopular", but I would also categorize it as myopic and unfortunate.

I'm not saying they should never set foot in a war-torn nation or anywhere with civil unrest. But there is reasonable danger and unreasonable. Walking into the middle of an angry mob in Egypt as a woman is unreasonable.

>Being in the mob is not limited to saying "there's a mob here", it's also how you establish and maintain contacts and sources.

I disagree. There is very little value gained from being inside the mob. Contacts and sources can be made from the sidelines or once the mob has dispersed.

Sexual assault is one of those things that lots of folks are afraid to talk about because it seems too easy to offend people.

I'm not surprised to find zero comments in this thread.

I don't think it's difficult not to offend people. Just use common sense and don't say things like "She had it comin' for dressing like such a slut". I mean, I hope everyone agrees that rape is a bad thing and so is justifying it.

Several female journalist friends of mine were extremely offended about how the story was presented. It seemed like every story had the most salacious pictures of her they could find.

I think it's too glib to blame people for being too easily offended.

I think this kind of thing gets portrayed differently depending on where it happens. Happens in Egypt and people might try to blame to reporter, if it happened in a big American city I think the blame would be squarely on those that committed the act. Do we hold different parts of the world to different moral account?

Many people's view of the middle east in general includes men that view women like slaves, while they might hold their own countrymen to a higher standard. In other words, no one wants to believe that men in America could think/act in such a backwards way so they are more likely to pin the blame on the men in an attempt to say, "See! Those guys are the outliers!" On the other hand, they view the Middle East in general as a 'dangerous place' that is 10x more dangerous when you're a woman, so the compulsion is to ask, "Why were you even putting yourself in that dangerous position?" (effectively placing the blame on the victim)

I'm not stating that the above is right, but that's my take on why it happens.

<offtopic> I am wondering about the HN ranking system. This post gets 24 upvotes 8 comments in 2 hours and still not showing up on the front page </offtopic>

It's likely that many people have flagged it as offtopic, which offsets the positive votes. I think it's a fine article, and would be happy to run across it elsewhere, but flagged it in an attempt to keep HN more focussed.

I mean no offense by this, but am getting scared by how many front page articles right now have no specific hacker content. Ironically, I find your self-declared offtopic comment more on topic.

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