“没有记者，我们都被蒙住了眼睛。” That’s the rallying cry of the # FreeAustinTice运动.
如果你还没有听说过这场运动，下面是一个场景：2012年，自由记者奥斯汀·泰斯（Austin Tice）在叙利亚失踪。 In addition to being an award-winning reporter whose work has appeared in 华盛顿邮报 and 麦克拉奇报业集团, he’s a former Marine and Georgetown law student. 一些人认为他被巴沙尔·阿萨德（Bashar al-Assad）政权控制，但目前还不确定。
A month ago his parents teamed up with 无国界记者组织, a press freedom organization, to launch a campaign to raise awareness of his plight and to encourage Americans to take action. 他们要求人们：
1) 以蒙眼誓言为例 – e.g. wear the blindfold, a symbol of their son’s kidnapping – and spread the symbolic image on 社交媒体.
2) 在请愿书上签名 urging our government to step up its efforts to get Tice home.
3) 捐给 无国界记者组织 to support their work.
Ads directing readers to FreeAustinTice.rsf.org are running on 260+ news sites and there’s been a good deal of media coverage of the situation.
我被这场运动感动了（我无法想象自己站在Tice父母的立场上），我觉得新闻自由是一个至关重要的问题，所以我一直在与同事、朋友和家人讨论这种情况，阅读相关的新闻报道，并浏览对这些报道的回应。
我学到了一件事——我以前没有完全理解——有些人觉得进入危险领域的记者是自私的，因为他们最终把别人置于危险之中。
I wholeheartedly believe that conflict journalists need to have proper training – like the kind provided 通过 Sebastian Junger’s 记者在拯救同事方面受到指导 (RISC). 他们应该采取一切可能的预防措施，他们应该尽可能地拥有自救的工具，但我不得不说，我觉得那些提出这种论点并指责这些记者做他们（非常困难的）工作的人没有理解媒体在维护民主中的作用。
我们需要这些信息。 我们需要了解这些饱受战争蹂躏的国家正在发生的事情，以便做出明智的决定，并最终维持一个自由社会。 还有别的选择吗？ 保持聋哑和失明？ 无视种族灭绝、腐败等，以为这些都会消失，而这些不会在这里发生？ In 泰斯母亲的话, “So many Americans didn’t know about these missing journalists — even James Foley, whose situation was so public — until they came to this brutal end. Americans need to know the sacrifices journalists make, the risks they take to bring us the real news, the news about things that are going on in other parts of the world.”
可以肯定地说，考虑到泰斯在海军陆战队的服役经历，他既没有naïve，也没有对他面临的危险准备不足。
与此同时，Tice的父母明确表示，他们不赞成将他们的儿子带出叙利亚的救援行动。 His father, Marc, is quoted in the 华盛顿邮报》 saying, “We’re not looking at putting American soldiers in harm’s way to try to save Austin. 我们相信两国之间的外交、对话和沟通。”
对记者冒不必要的（自私的）风险的批评对我来说很新鲜，但对Tice来说并不新鲜。 On his Facebook page in July 2012, in response to critics he posted: “I don’t have a death wish — I have a life wish. So I’m living, in a place, at a time and with a people where life means more than anywhere I’ve ever been — because every single day people here lay down their own for the sake of others.” 点击这里阅读他的全部想法。
你觉得呢？