Friday 1 January 2010

Re Michelle Lang

Recommended reading today is Peter Worthington's column on the death of Calgary Herald reporter Michelle Lang in an Afghanistan bombing.

The column heading reads: There's a death in the family.

Worthington, a WW2 and Korean War vet, writes: "I did not know Michelle Lang - but in a way, all of us in the news business knew her.

"We feel we have lost one of our own, just as soldiers feel they've lost a comrade when someone they didn't know from another regiment is killed in action."

The Committee to Protect Journalists says Lang was the 20th journalist killed in Afghanistan since 1992 and 141 have been killed in Iraq since 1992.

Lang, the first Canadian reporter to be killed in Afghanistan, was one of 70 journalists killed worldwide in 2009, says CPJ.

And print media journalists killed worldwide top the 1992-2009 casualty list: Print, 57%; Radio, 27%; Television, 20%; Internet, 1%.

Lang's death, at 34 and in her prime, personalizes all of the stats for Canadian journalists.

As the heading for Worthington's column says, there has been a death in the family.

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