Schlesinger Is No Kissinger?

David Schlesinger (on Reuters Blogs), the incoming Reuters global editor in chief, seems — if my ear for diplomatic subtleties has not gone tone deaf — to assert an important preference in his latest epistle to the troops and the world.

You may have noticed, for example, how the recent New York Times headline referred, in a story on the same subject — people who get freaking killed while gathering public information — to “Journalists and Media Workers.”

Hey, Grey Lady, your collective bargaining strategy is showing up in your reporting.

WTF?

Now here is the relevant passage from Schlesinger’s treatment of the issue.

Note that his concern for journalist safety was a major selling point of his mid-reengineering appointment there, which kicked his predecessor — who also headed the Reuters (Tax-Deductible Charity) Foundation — upstairs, as it were.

The Brussels’-based International News Safety Institute, of which I’m a board member, on Tuesday called 2006 “the worst year on record for news media casualties”. It counted a total of 167 journalists and support staff who died trying to cover the news in 37 countries in 2006. As an organization that focuses on safety, INSI counts all deaths, including accidents.

Okay, good for you; I know those people somewhat, and they do not glaringly mess around the way that, oh, say, RSF seems to these days.

[I originally omitted the "not" from "do not mess around," note.

Hire a copy editor today. Spellcheck cannot catch that sort of thing.]

The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists, which Reuters also supports, said 55 journalists were killed in direct connection to their work in 2006, and it is investigating another 27 deaths to determine whether they were work-related. The CPJ, which focuses on press freedom issues, doesn’t include accidental deaths or count support staff, which is why its numbers are lower than other tallies.

Define “support staff.” Define “accidental.” Define “work-related.”

“Two in the nape of the neck while handcuffed, in the course of resisting arrest” accidental, and ruled “blue suicide,” for example?

#%#%@!!!

Both organizations detail each case they count on their websites (INSI, CPJ) – the lists make sobering reading about brave men and women who died, mostly in their home countries.

Okay, I am somewhat mollified.

I see you drawing a careful line between your personal professional commitment and the commitment of the organization, at whose pleasure you serve.

That is carefully expressed and, I think, ethically coherent.

I would not want to have your job, and I wish you the best, Mr. S.

You can really do some good here.

By quitting and botando a boca no trombone, if it comes to that.

But here’s to labor peace in our times.

And I appreciated this point as well: It does not matter what you call them when you bear in mind that these were dedicated human beings doing valuable work for the rest of us human beings.

Still, if a man or woman with a camera, or a translator, or an audio recording operator, is using some kind of technical expertise that does not necessarily involve typing or putting on TV make-up, to put facts on the record, I would call that freaking journalism.

Pure and simple. More so than reading off a freaking teleprompter, even.