If you find yourself in the shadows of St Paul’s Cathedral with a few moments to spare, please stroll down Fleet Street and visit St Bride’s Church.
This is where you will find a memorial reminding us about journalists and photographers who are killed while bringing us the latest news from war zones around the world. I hold their unflinching bravery in the highest esteem.
The latest victim who will to join their numbers is British war photographer and film maker Tim Hetherington,who was recently killed during a mortar attack in Libya. More than 2,000 journalists, many of them photojournalists, have been killed in war zones, since 1989. So much has been written about Tim’s brilliance in capturing the lives of those affected by wars since his devastating death, that it has jolted us into considering the dangers which journalists and photographers place themselves in to show us the true horror before their eyes.
I visited St Bride’s in 2007 and felt deeply saddened as I stared at the young faces in front of me, the lives of those who had died in pursuit of this truth. I have added some of those pictures to my flickr feed which can be viewed on the right of this post.
For 500 years St Bride’s has been the spiritual home of the press, printing and journalism;Â I imagine it brings great comfort to the media during times of loss, such as now. Mostly, these deaths go unnoticed, we don’t get to hear about it. But Tim’s brilliance, his emotive filming and the high regard in which he is held among his peers is so great that it has made worldwide news.
That’s why at Easter you may like to reflect on the personal sacrifices made by this professional, often greatly maligned, with The Journalists’ Prayer:
Almighty God, strengthen and direct, we pray, the will of all whose work it is to write what many read, and to speak where many listen. May we be bold to confront evil and injustice, understanding and compassionate of human weakness, rejecting alike the half-truth which deceives, and the slated word which corrupts.
May the power which is ours, for good or ill, always be used with honesty and courage, with respect and integrity, so that, when all here has been written, said and done, we may, unashamed, meet Thee face to face. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
Very sad. I didn’t know about this church. I would like to visit it.
And all the brave men and women of the military who are out there fighting for all our sakes.
At the same time this so called ” Conservative ” gov is selling them down the river as it sacks thousands of them , takes away their planes , turns their aircraft carriers in scrap metal , and closes the RAF base that they fly from .
Cameron is a fraud and he and his Cabinet should hang their heads in shame as ever body is returned .Margaret Thatcher would never have acted in such a manner but of course she was a true Conservative and knew that the first duty of the state is to protect its people . Cameron thinks its to keep dripping wets like Clegg happy.
Better still send him out there for a six month stint of sitting on a ” armoured vehicle ” which offers no protection .
My son in law goes in Sept just as his first child is due to be born .
All due respect with regard to the bravery and tenacity of the man.
However, I feel that certain journalists are trying to set the agenda rather than report the news. And that our politicians are compelled to make rash decisions based on the emotiveness of those reports.
It’s a fine line between merely telling the truth and making an item a headline and therefore a political priority. And I don’t doubt that the opposite has been the case too – governments directing journalists to focus on issues which they’d like justifiable reason to get involved in.