Editorial: The shameful silence

Journalists are supposed to be the defenders of an informed society.  When they do their job, they are taking part in a noble and needed profession.  When a journalist is attempting to cover the stories that make the government uncomfortable and they are killed in the process, it is news.

So we're a little confused about Zia Mehdi.


Not that she died, we're not confused about that.  She did die.





The Journalistic Freedoms Observatory explained Tuesday she was stabbed to death in Baghdad while working on two stories, the targeting of Iraq's LGBT community and the over-one hundred women arrested for prostitution in Baghdad.   The Journalistic Freedoms Observatory is a journalism organization based in Baghdad.  There are international journalism organizations.  There is, for example, Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalism.

Strangely, a journalist stabbed to death wasn't even a blip on the radar of either Reporters Without Borders or the Committee to Protect Journalism.

And the coverage from the news media?  When a journalist is killed, it strikes close to home and many outlets can relate so it's a no-brainer to cover the death.  Well the Iraqi news outlet   Kitabat reported it on it Wednesday.


 

And this was followed by . . .


Well no one.

A journalist was stabbed to death in Baghdad.  She was trying to do her job.  She was covering researching stories that mattered.


It happened last Monday and most haven't even bothered to note it.