Reuters Editors
Our editors & readers talk
Another dreadful loss in the Reuters family
The following is the text of a staff email sent this morning by Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger.
The news that our colleague, Hiro Muramoto, was shot and killed covering the violence in Bangkok broke on Saturday.
Once more the cause and profession of journalism has claimed a life.
He died for the story. That is not a price we ever want to pay.
There is no more important cause for us as a company and for us as professionals than journalistic safety.
To have Hiro die just after we watched on the newly leaked video the 2007 deaths of our colleagues Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh is devastating to me; I’m sure most of you feel similar emotions.
We know that covering the story forces us to rush towards danger when others rush away. We know that death can come from anywhere. We know how dangerous the places we cover are.
It appears that you assume that military action is a “game” that is controllable by “generals.” Where they certainly influence the action: first, it is not a game, and second, they are less often in control than out. For certain, military commanders are responsible, a fact lost on most pundits and all but a few politicians. May I suggest that you read Clausewitz’s “The Fog of War” for a more enlightened point of view.
To the extent that a journalist goes into harms way, that journalist can expect a short life-expectancy. One thing is certain, journalists who compromise an operation by their presence might just as well be the enemy.
Reporting on conflict is inherently dangerous, in a certain context it is also “glamorous” for those who choose that line of work. So, just as some “generals” do it for the glory, so do most all journalists, and from time to time both die. A sad but true fact. Honesty and integrity are appreciated by both but both do not always manifest those qualities.
We mourn both.