2/3/11 Thursday, 1:23 AM EST
Jean Purcell
Opine Cafe and Books
Opinion
What is the response of the Christian writer or journalist when crises explode and we learn more about the world due to these crises?
As writers and as regular viewers tonight, you and I are either far from the increasingly explosive events in Cairo tonight, and we are safe; or, we are in the middle of it. Tonight, journalists of print, digital, and visual media and their cohorts - producers, photo journalists, camera operators, in some cases - are risking their lives to cover these events by sight and by camera and microphone. There is no doubt they do this because it what they love to do, yet often they are hearing and seeing dangerously close at hand, touched by it at different levels of thought and experience..
In these somewhat cynical times of suspicion of many professionals, we know the reasons we have become skeptical about news reporting. We have been led to believe lies due to intentional twisting of stories due to injections of journalistic commentary and personal politics of journalists.
But there is much more to journalism than that, and it is very likely that many journalists have grown up, in the sense that they became dismayed and even embarrassed by their peers who were using "news" for personal or career gain.
Tonight, journalists are reporting through the night, many of them in danger, even if they are not in the streets but are broadcasting or reporting in from close quarters where they have been told to wait.
If safe, we pray for peace in Cairo and we pray for those citizens and outsiders all over Egypt who share the distress in their own ways and for their own reasons. Now, US citizens are being encouraged to leave immediately. "Further delay is inadvisable," according to CNN's crew sitting in the dark, in a closed in place, reporting the events they are witnessing close up. Pray for journalists and their families back home or preparing, from Egypt, to return to the USA without them, according to family agreements.
If in the middle of things, it is important to aim for honesty, care, and continual internal prayer as things evolve. The best journalists, in my view, aim to be real and react out of more than personal attention or safety. There is a concern for others evident in this way tonight, among journalists letting us into their world, a world away so to speak, via sound and camera equipment, satellites and other technologies. These requirements to react outside one's self seem to be part of the best of journalism. I thank God for that, too.
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