Shooters at risk

Frank Smyth for the Committee to Protect Journalists

Although war reporting demands physical proximity to a story, the risks that photographers and journalists face worldwide don't always involve bombs and grenades. Uncovering certain stories may be more dangerous, as illustrated by the many local journalists who are killed in direct retaliation for their work.

Cape Town, South Africa. Feb. 11, 1990. Magnum photographer Patrick Zachmann was wounded by a rubber bullet when taking this picture during a police altercation with a crowd awaiting the liberation of Nelson Mandela. Patrick Zachmann/Magnum Photos

It's an unconventional memorial. A heavy slab of gray rock sits outside the elevators in the foyer of Reuters' Washington bureau. Propped up against a polished wooden stand, the face of the granite is hand etched with white letters to read:

In memory of Roberto Navas Alvarez
Reuter [sic] Photographer
Born 12 December 1960
Died March 18 1989
Shot while covering Presidential elections in El Salvador.

The small Central American nation was packed with foreign journalists. At least a dozen of them lived in San Salvador at the time, while a few dozen more had just parachuted in to cover national elections to be held the following day. Many foreign news organizations, especially the wires, hired locals to help report and take pictures.

Navas was a newly hired photo-stringer for Reuters, and he was giving his more established Reuters colleague, Luis Galdámez, a ride home on his motorcycle after a long day’s work. Things were tense, as leftist guerrillas were boycotting the elections being organized by the Salvadoran government and backed by the United States. Many Salvadoran Army officers complained that the foreign press in particular gave the Marxist rebels too much ink.

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