Voices of Courage

 

Justice Trampling on Injustice
1600-1650 (unknown artist)
Photo Credit: West Suffolk Heritage Service  [CC BY-NC] 

What drives someone to become a journalist? A good journalist, someone whose keyboard is a tool for exposing injustice, a truth seeker who would risk life and limb to report their experiences back to the world? I know I couldn't do it. I've interviewed people for a research project and was hopeless. I found myself shying away from asking the really difficult questions.. There's no way I could confront a corrupt official, or race to file a story before a hostile regime tried to silence me, possibly for ever. I like to think of myself as someone who would speak truth to power, but would I really, if my life was in the balance?...

In the film Words of War, I have the honour of portraying the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya - a woman with immense courage and integrity who, despite the threats to her life, continued to be a blazing beacon of truth in a time and place where speaking truth was extremely dangerous... It [the film] gave me a deeper appreciation for the journalists who risk everything to tell the stories that shape our world.

Journalism has become a dangerous profession; according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, more than 1,800 journalists and media workers  have been killed while pursuing a story since 1992. Of these, at least 124 were killed in 2024 alone, making last year the deadliest in three decades. Nearly 70% of these deaths were at the hands of the Israeli military in Gaza and Lebanon. There was also a sharp 56% rise in press violations against female journalists since 2023, according to the Coalition for Women in Journalism, including detentions, harassment, physical assault and intimidation.

Threats aren't reserved for war zones or authoritarian regimes. On the US campaign trail, Donald Trump spoke about revoking broadcast licences and jailing journalists, while rich individuals in Britain have targeted journalists with insidious Slapps (strategic lawsuits against public participation)...

We rely on journalists to expose injustice, hold power to account, and to shine light into the world's darkest corners. As John Adams, one of America's founding fathers, put it: "The liberty of the press is essential to the security of the state." Yet everywhere that journalists are being silenced, this principle is being eroded...

That's why it is so important that we protect those who do the work of asking hard questions, digging beyond the propaganda, even when their work is dangerous... Remember: the next time you see a headline in the news that expose corruption, injustice or extremism, someone may have risked their life to bring that information to you.

(Maxine Peake, The Guardian, 2025)

Proper journalists all over the world have to be prepared to question those in power to account for their actions - whether it be in the US, Russia, China or the UK. They know that speaking the truth and telling their stories can be very dangerous and many of them have been deliberately silenced. These people are far removed from the so called journalists, or sensationalists of the "gutter press". In the UK, examples of excellent international reporters would be: Fergal Keane, Kate Adie, Robert Fisk, Orla Guerin and Jeremy Bowen.