Colin Sheridan: What stops journalists from speaking up about fellow professionals being targeted

Earlier this year, Ismail Al-Ghoul, a 27-year-old Palestinian journalist working for Al Jazeera Arabic, was killed in an Israeli strike. Colin Sheridan wonders what prevents so many fellow journalists from speaking up about fellow professionals being targeted, intimidated, injured, and killed in such horrific fashion

Al Jazeera journalist Wael al-Dahdouh attends the funeral of his son, Palestinian journalist Hamza al-Dahdouh, after Hamza was killed in an Israeli strike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on January 7, 2024. File picture: REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

Solidarity. Such a noble concept. The act of standing by someone. The unity or agreement of feeling or action, especially among individuals with a common interest.

Derived from the French…ah, who cares. It’s a pretty word we keep in the locker only to be taken out when we want others to know we care about them, and — crucially — when we want to feel good about ourselves.

How pampered and comfortable a profession have we become as journalists that we only tend to show it when petty football managers refuse to answer questions from brave sportswriters who have the temerity to question their tactics.

How quick we are to take to social media to congratulate a colleague on a Podcast of the Month award, all in the hope to get a follow back. How ambivalent we seem to be about a fellow journalist being decapitated by an airstrike.

As of August 1, 2024, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ preliminary investigations showed at least 113 journalists and media workers were among the estimated 39,000 killed since October 7 — making it the deadliest period for journalists since the committee began gathering data in 1992.

It reports that dozens more have been injured, with some still missing.

In addition to documenting the growing tally of journalists killed and injured, the committee’s research has found multiple kinds of incidents of journalists being targeted while carrying out their work in Israel and the two Palestinian territories: Gaza and the West Bank. 

A mural of Wael al-Dahdouh, Al Jazeera's chief correspondent in Gaza, painted by street artist Emmalene Blake in Dublin after an air strike near the southern city of Rafah killed two journalists in January, including Hamza Dahdouh, the oldest son of Wael Dahdouh. File picture: Niall Carson/PA

These include 52 arrests, numerous assaults, threats, cyberattacks, and censorship. As of August 1, the committee’s records showed that 36 of these journalists were still under arrest.

Ismail Al-Ghoul, a 27-year-old Palestinian journalist working for Al Jazeera Arabic, was killed earlier this week in an Israeli strike on a car he and his colleague, Rami al-Refee, were driving in the al-Shatei camp near Gaza City.

Al-Ghoul was wearing a press vest when he was decapitated by the targeted strike. al-Ghoul, who had previously been detained by the Israeli defence forces at al-Shifa hospital, was one of the few reporters remaining in northern Gaza.

He had more than 620,000 Instagram followers and was well-known for his appearances on Al Jazeera. He was also married and the father of a baby girl, Zeina, who had not seen him since October 7.

Killed alongside him was his colleague al-Refee, a 27-year-old Palestinian camera operator who was freelancing for Al Jazeera.

It’s worth mentioning their names, ages, and circumstances because — despite the barbaric nature of their slaughter — there has been very little fresh coverage, especially from western media outlets, about the targeted assassination of journalists in Gaza and the occupied territories.

A mural of slain Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in Gaza city who was shot dead in May 2022 during an Israeli military raid in the West Bank town of Jenin. File photo: AP/Adel Hana

This is despite journalism being one of those professions that prides itself on impartiality, objectivity, and, yes, universal solidarity. Which is nothing short of shameful.

Canvas most journalists, from the court reporter to the news anchor, and they’ll tell you they entered the profession because of some devotion to truth-telling, a higher calling, and a vocation that carries an almost sacred code of honour that unites us all — regardless of language, geography or discipline.

You’ll hear a lot of that rhetoric when they hand out the Peabodys and Pulitzers and Marie Colvin Awards. To their credit, some of those honoured will mention murdered journalists in Gaza and elsewhere. But not enough of them. And certainly not in Ireland.

There are eight daily national newspapers published here. As many again on Sunday. Add in the online-only news outlets and that’s a considerable output for a small island with a proud media tradition.

It takes a lot of journalists, editors, sub-editors, photographers, and technicians to keep the wheels turning. Similarly, across radio and television.

None of us are in it for the money, the industry joke goes, so you’d have to wonder what prevents so many from speaking up as we watch in real-time our fellow professionals being targeted, intimidated, injured, and killed in such horrific fashion.

Yes, our comfortable remove is a factor — but it’s not an excuse. Our own history is littered with examples of journalists targeted for doing their job. Veronica Guerin and Lyra McKee both lost their lives for it.

Veronica Guerin was murdered for doing her job. File photo: Eamonn Farrell/ RollingNews.ie

The National Union of Journalists condemned the “vile online abuse” directed at a reporter by the far-right last month, while Taoiseach Simon Harris said of the same incident he was “horrified to hear of threats to a journalist covering criminal incidents and doing their job”.

Mr Harris added that a “free media and reporting is a pillar of democracy, and seeking to subvert it through vile intimidation is an affront”, as he expressed “solidarity with the journalist impacted”. Ah, yes. Solidarity.

While it was encouraging to hear Mr Harris express that support, it only serves to highlight the conditionality we apply to its distribution — especially when we know the positive impact it can have and, conversely, the demoralising effect of its absence on those who need it most.

Before you say it, there is no need to conflate solidarity with besieged journalists reporting on a genocide with support for Hamas. Or antisemitism. You don’t have to be pro-Palestine or anti-Israel or a Zionist apologist or a Holocaust denier.

You don’t even need to have an opinion one way or the other on what is happening in Palestine — curious and all as that position might be — to be appalled that fellow journalists are being slaughtered anywhere in the world.

We should feel duty bound to express that outrage. We don’t need columns, front pages, or radio shows. We don’t even need a byline. The very nature of modern journalism demands a social media presence. Yet, from most, there is silence. Despicable silence.

What cost is a message of solidarity? Of protest? Of disgust? Even if it’s only broadcast to a paltry 90 followers? Even if it comes from the salubrious surroundings of the Olympic village in Paris, or the press box in Croke Park?

The very protections your press pass affords you there count for nothing more than a target on the back of your Palestinian peers. That’s not hyperbole. It’s reality. Be assured, those that do the killing rely heavily on our collective ambivalence.

It’s no coincidence the worst atrocities happen during the Oscars, Super Bowls, and Champions League finals and, now, the Olympic Games.

What's your view on this issue?

You can tell us here

Nobody wants their feed interrupted with pictures of dead reporters, their colleagues removing their press vests because they finally realise they are safer without them. It’s a grotesque hindrance, especially when there’s some celebrity-spotting on the Champs Élysées to be done.

Those distracted or indifferent needn’t worry, the killing will continue well after the Games are finished when the Premier League and NFL returns.

When the kids go back to school, the shortlists for the annual journalism awards are published. Just remember to include the noble reasons why you got into the profession in your speeches after you win.

It’s funny because, as a people, we are famous for remembering the neighbours who don’t attend funerals much more than those that do, so we shouldn’t be surprised if our colleagues in the Middle East are keeping score on those who remain silent in the face of their existential armageddon.

As for Ismail Al-Ghoul: Well, in the days that followed his murder, Israel claimed he was a Hamas operative, and, unsurprisingly, this quickly became the headline many media organisations west of Bethlehem ran with.

In truth, Israel need not have cooked up a lie about Al-Ghoul to convince the world he was worth decapitating. It turns out, for the most part, nobody really cared anyway.