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About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 13, 2002)
5 ------------ Opinion WedNEsdAy, FEbRUARy 15, 2002 Kidnapped reporter exposes dangers of job Just ask Daniel Pearl. You see, Pearl is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal who was work ing on a story in Pakistan about terrorism. He was last seen on Jan. 23, 2002, after " leaving the home in Karachi where he Elena Bory ska and his Sports Editor pregnant wife were staying. He was on his way to meet one of his contacts at a restaurant and disappeared. Four days after his meeting at the restaurant was to have taken place, the people respon sible for Pearl’s disappearance e-mailed photos of the reporter to news organizations and gov ernment officials, including one showing a gun pointed at his head. The last e-mail message Telling it like it Ir'4:" figures for the budget, a group of extremists breaks down your door and proceeds to blindfold you, while at the same time is leading you out of the safety of your office building and into a secret hideout. While this will most likely never happen to people with regular jobs, there are a few jobs out there that are becom ing increasingly dangerous. received was on Jan. 30 and threatened to kill Pearl in 24 hours. Pearl’s captors also mentioned in one of the e-mails that all American journalists would become targets if they didn’t leave the country within three days. All of this drama came about because Pearl was doing his job; the group that kidnapped him called itself the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sover eignty and was convinced that he was working for the CIA. This incident has. brought up some serious issues, the first being the dangers of be ing a journalist in a hostile en vironment. I’m sure that if Pearl was only on vacation in Paki stan (why ever you would want to go to Pakistan right now for a vacation is beyond me) in stead of tracking down a story, he never would have encoun tered a problem. But because Retaking control of the government Every year in the United regular policy. States, voter turnout is lower “People are dropping out of than the previous year. Most democracy,” said Ralph Nader people, it seems, see no point during his presidential cam in voting. paign. “That’s a very danger The limited vote that we are ous trend. You have people allowed does not make the saying, ‘I’m not turned on to United States a d e m o c - racy, and the low voter turnout suggests that other people are feeling that as well. Politics (to politics.’ Well, history shows the politicians) is a corporate- that if you’re not turned on to sponsored party, and we’re politics, politics is going to not invited. turn on you.” Even so, our vote has not A lot of the problem is that quite come to mean nothing. the consensus party (that is, The problem is that when the Democrats and Republicans) government lies to us or acts receives enormous amounts of irresponsibly, we do not hold funding from multinational cor it accountable by withdrawing porations to ensure that all our support of it (through other voices are drowned out. taxes and general acceptance Having a virtual monopoly on of it). The government lies to media coverage, party members us because we let it, and we see fit to avoid the real issues have let it do so for so long that concern uS, like environ that does so as a matter of its mental devastation, corporate control of media, and the fail ure of democracy in the United States itself. Thankfully, there is a grow ing resistance to the shutting out of the people from politics. Just the other day I discovered an organization that is working to inform U.S. voters of what the political candidates really stand for. Found at http:// www.vote-smart.org/. Project Vote Smart’s website is de signed to make it easy for voters to End out who their candidates are, and expose each candidate’s record on voting, campaign finance, statements of position, backgrounds and evaluations. I think that registering to vote and doing so (especially at the local level) is important to get the current government under our control. In voting, it’s also im portant to be knowledgeable about candidates and issues. That’s an area for which alterna tive information sources are very important, since the corporate- controlled media is strongly bi ased toward business-as-usual consensus party candidates. ^Q ac I c AMAS ñ?¡NT Everything you want in a newspaper and more... It’s free. of his job of uncovering the news, Pearl was targeted. As a hopeful future journalist, this frightens me. If the bad guys of today are feeling threatened by reporters and taking action against them, what are the ones of tomorrow going to do? Ac cording to the Committee to Protect Journalists, in 2001 there were between 37 and 55 newspeople fatalities. At least 25 of these victims were murdered. Eight reporters have died in Af ghanistan since Sept. 11, but not all of them were victims of land mines or flying shrapnel—four of them were slain in an ambush and another during a burglary. One way to ensure that this never happens again is to make sure that reporters stay out of dangerous situations such as this. Of course, it is difficult to judge how quickly a relatively safe environment can turn hos tile, just as it is difficult to keep a reporter away from a really hot story. And even if one re porter isn’t willing to go, chances are there is another one out there who is. So maybe the solution isn’t to keep re porters out, but for the media to stay away from the tough stories. Who needs to know about the important news of the world anyway? Okay, but seriously, there is only one real solution to this problem: make the people who do this kind of thing stop. We need to find out where they are hiding out and let them know that we won’t stand for this type of thing. We need to get the message across that kid napping innocent people, whether a reporter or not, is in excusable. We need to make sure that Daniel Pearl is the last reporter to have to go through this type of situation for doing his job. Letter to the Editor... CCCPrint, door!). Enforcement could then come in the form of sim Well, I’ll take this opportu ply directing a “dislocated nity to say what is on my mind. smoker” to the nearest desig nated area. The designated ar You decide what it is worth. I am sick of walking to class eas should have benches, through clouds of smoke be would be the only areas cause smokers congregate at equipped with ashtrays, and doorways and other covered would perhaps even house a areas. We have a policy re cigarette vending machine. garding where one can smoke, As a teacher at CCC, I want but it’s not working. I don’t my smoking students to have a think the answer is to enforce place to smoke. I certainly don’t our current policy. I think the want them coming to class to answer is to designate (or tallystressed-out because they build) certain covered areas haven’t had a cigarette for quite for smoking. These areas need some time. Otherwise, I’d get so to be convenient (not too far stressed-out myself I’d have to out of the way), but located so take up smoking! that non-smokers could gen Thank you for your time, erally avoid or walk around Adam Hall these areas if they wished (i.e. certainly not right in front of a Mathematics Department Do you want tó go head to head with one of our writers? Bring it on! Send your opinions to ^t@clackamas.c ÿd.0î50Qjfwords or sto^dSBS. 104 with it saved o _ Imagine this: it’s a regular day at the office. You come in» sit down and begin to work on the pile of paperwork that is cluttering up the corner of your desk. As you start to tackle the
