The Dangers of Reporting

A guard at a public park in Tegucigalpa.

Talk about perspective: I travelled at the end of June to Honduras. I was asked to cover a conference there on justice. Reporting on corruption in government or education, land or labor issues there can literally be a life or death assignment. One long term Honduran reporter for the Associated Press told me 29 journalists have been killed in the last three years, 36 lawyers and hundreds of workers.

"Are we afraid?" he asked rhetorically. "We just have to turn ourselves over to God and do our job."

I wrote about the conference for the Huffington Post in an article called, "Danger: A Different Kind of Mission Trip."

And responded to the same trip with an editorial for the Center for Public Justice entitled, "A Journalist's Confession: Justice, Honduras and the Surprise of Both."

Statue of Christ at the other end
from the guard at the park.

So far, though, I've received no threats or dangers for having written either article. I wish my colleagues in Honduras were so safe, and am all the more grateful for their work.