David Cay Johnston writing in Al Jazeera:
The risks reporters take are great, but the rewards for the public are worth it
The three investigative reporters sitting in comfortable chairs in a large darkened meeting last week in Lillehammer, Norway, all seemed more than a bit on edge. But then they risk imprisonment, beatings and even murder for the crime of reporting facts that some governments and powerful corporations don't want anyone to know.More here
A proxy sat in for a fourth journalist, Khadija Ismayilova, who is serving seven and a half years in prison for exposing the ruling family of Azerbaijan as kleptocrats who plunder the public treasury. Ismayilova had a chance to flee, but instead chose neither to back down nor run away.
Many of the 900 investigative reporters from 121 countries who met Oct. 7-11 at the ninth Global Journalism Investigative Conference are also at risk of being punished for telling inconvenient truths, a danger not just to them but to every one of us who values liberty.
