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By Any Means Necessary

© Shaun Michael Jex

The world is a strange place, sometimes ominously beautiful and at others horrific in it's depravity. At every second, on every portion of the globe, the struggle and flourishing of life can be found side by side. There are essentially no words that can express the emptiness one must feel looking at withered bodies, still living covered with death flies, and no words strong enough to capture the moments of slight perfection we are at times privileged enough to feel. The only thing that we can hold for a certainty is that the flow of information in the world will never stop. If we are to affect any change what so ever, we must find ways to channel it, without taking away from it, and make it available to the public at large.

As a writer, I have at times felt immense guilt for even picking up a pen, having seen so little of the world. The extent of my travels goes no farther than around North America and parts of Europe. How is it possible, or justifiable, for me to ever theorize or even attempt to write about life, when I have not seen the heights and depths between which it can move? It is because of this question, that despite years of schooling, I do not think that my true education has yet begun. It is also because of this that I hold a deep respect for journalists.

The journalist rightfully deserves an important place in the world of literature, and yet it seems they face the steepest and harshest of criticisms and the least praise. While I admit that the press can have its faults, it must also be noted that the advancement of the free press has often coincided and aided in the advancement of societies and humanitarian work. At any given time there are innumerable journalists all over the world, risking injury death and imprisonment for the sake of telling the story, reporting the truth. In this year alone twenty-nine have been killed on assignment, eight recently, and at least one hundred and eight are known to be wrongfully imprisoned. As recently as within the last week, the acclaimed journalist Robert Fisk was attacked and beaten by a mob in Pakistan, and yet continued to write and report only a day or two later.

It is the journalists who essentially bear the light to the rest of the world in order to make the truth known. In the last decade alone a great number of the humanitarian efforts in the Balkans and other countries came about because of journalistic reporting that long preceded any government action. They constantly remain at the fringes, and at the forefront of literature, because they place themselves in the middle of history as it is taking place. They stand in the line of fire in order to make sure that everyone in the world gets a change to know what they need to know.

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