Colombia: The War Against Journalists
Reporting on Colombia’s war is extremely dangerous for journalists. For what they publish and broadcast, reporters are threatened and harassed, kidnapped and beaten, driven into exile and murdered. Only in Algeria have more journalists been murdered during recent years in retaliation for the work they do.
Richard C. Harwood teaches journalists strategies for finding valuable new sources. He describes how perspectives of people from various layers of civic life often go untapped by reporters and how, by tapping them, coverage of a community can be strengthened. As Harwood writes, journalists “can ‘visit’ civic life to do a story from time to time, or they can decide to live there—to come to know communities deeply and to have that knowledge inform their daily work.” Karen Lin Clark, an editor at The San Diego Union-Tribune, describes how reporters at her paper have gotten to know communities deeply by using Harwood’s techniques. John X. Miller, public editor at the Detroit Free Press, emphasizes the value of reporters seeking out and listening in new ways, as his paper’s reporters did in their city’s Arab-American community. And Kathy Spurlock, executive editor of The (Monroe, La.) News-Star, shows how a change in news coverage spurred community dialogues across racial lines.
