Journalist - "a person who writes for newspapers or magazines or prepares news to be broadcast on radio or television."
The description clearly states what the contribution of the professional is to the society. Respectively, journalists have given a lot to the world in terms of information on contemporary global and/or local issues, not neglecting the danger sometimes these freelancers, people like us all, have been put up against. However, it is their own decision to be at risk on daily basis. Nobody else has the right to tell them 'stop, you should not do that, it threatens your life'. Everyone should respect each others decision, without harming nobody's life, it is our human right to do so.
Now, why would I bring up words like respect, harm, human right and all of it linked with journalism. As much as journalists have delivered useful and mostly credible (recently this has become a strong debatable topic) information to the world society, they have neglected the privacy of people. In some cases where police and crime has been in the spotlight that gathering and distribution of information and facts has put innocent people in danger, which is disrespectful, harmful and against their human rights.
To clear all this mess stated above I will introduce you to a case, recently happened in Bulgaria. Briefly, without mentioning the names of the newspaper where the article appeared, the journalist name who wrote the article and the witnesses' names, the story is about the so called 'King of the Gypsies' in Bulgaria. He has threatened to take the life of two people (husband and wife), as stated in the article, while they were having a talk in live area surrounded by other people (more than 10 so called witnesses). It is arguable if this whole situation is due to a previous unknown conflict between the two parties. However, other sources say, it has all happened because of the elections and the power that might get them in to. The whole story has escalated and has been taken to the police. Now the 'King of the Gypsies' together with his family are under investigation and himself, powerful within his community, is threatened to be put in jail for 6 years. Coming to an end of the story, only 2 out of 10, possibly more, witnesses' names have been mentioned in the newspaper. After this statement those two, which names have been shared with the public have now been threatened by obviously the people of the 'King of the Gypsies'. Immediate questions are raised: How these threateners know that the names are real? And why would the journalist write, at first place, any names in his/her article?
Coming to an end, journalists as any other professionals have to deal with their job and that is to provide information to the media - newspapers, magazines, television and so on. Nevertheless, they must have at least a little respect for themselves and the people who are involved in their story by not neglecting the importance of human life and the harm they could possibly do by sharing names of witnesses, in this case, on a crime that is not even clear who is responsible for what.
Ps. I give my sincere apologies to the readers of not giving out any sources, names, etc. as this might additionally harm innocent people. Nevertheless, readers have their own right to agree or disagree with the blogger's opinion on the topic.
