Moments after Afghan journalist Samim Faramarz wrapped up his live report on a suicide attack in Kabul, a car bomb exploded just meters away, killing him and his cameraman, Ramiz Ahmadi.
Their colleagues at Tolo News choked back tears as they reported the deaths live on air — cracking open a divisive debate on how Afghan journalists should operate in such a dangerous environment.
The deaths of Faramarz and Ahmadi on Sept. 5 took the number of journalists and media workers killed in Afghanistan this year to 14, making the nation the deadliest in the world for the media.
Photo: AFP
Among the dead were 13 journalists — the highest number killed in Afghanistan in a single year since the start of the war.
The losses have devastated the tight-knit community that faces the real prospect of tragedy every time they go to work.
“When we leave our homes we don’t know whether we will go back alive,” said 1TV reporter Hamid Haidary, who keeps a photograph shrine of fallen journalists on a shelf above his desk.
Haidary had gone to the scene of the explosion that killed Faramarz and Ahmadi, but returned to his office minutes before the second bomb detonated.
“It is already too much for us,” said Lotfullah Najafizada, director of Tolo, which is Afghanistan’s largest private broadcaster.
As security in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate, the fear and anxiety is ever-present, he added.
“It is not just about the blast site, it is going to a province, it is coming to the office or being in the office — they all are attached to risks and it is difficult sometimes to minimize all of them to zero,” he said.
Sixty journalists and media workers have been killed in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion in 2001 that toppled the Taliban regime and enabled independent media to blossom in its wake — an average of about three a year, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
Afghan media support group NAI gave an even higher toll of 95, but the departure of NATO combat troops at the end of 2014 marked a turning point, RSF figures show: 39 journalists and media workers — more than half of the total — have been killed since then as a resurgent Taliban and the newly emerged Islamic State group terrorize the country.
Media outlets have already scaled back coverage on the battlefield, but until this year, suicide attacks in urban centers remained a staple for newsrooms.
A double bomb attack in the Afghan capital on April 30 changed that. Nine journalists were killed in the twin blasts — the most lethal attack on the media since the fall of the Taliban.
Less than three months later, Agence France-Presse driver Mohammad Akhtar was killed in another suicide attack on his way to work, followed this month by Faramarz and Ahmadi.
The deaths are forcing outlets to ask themselves hard questions about how they work, especially as the nation braces for more violence ahead of parliamentary elections next month.
Much of the blame for the journalist deaths has been heaped on the Afghan government and its beleaguered security forces for failing to protect them, but media outlets also have been criticized for repeatedly putting their staff in danger.
“Losing journalists in similar events one after another and not learning from the mistakes is bad management both on the part of the media organizations and the government,” said Sayed Ikram Afzali, executive director of Afghan advocacy group Integrity Watch.
Militants make headlines for killing civilians, security forces and first responders, including journalists.
However, a total ban on covering suicide attacks “would be disrespecting the fallen,” BBC Kabul bureau chief Shoaib Sharifi said.
The British broadcaster goes to great lengths to minimize the risks.
“We literally evaluate and monitor every step outside the office,” he said.
For now, Afghan broadcaster 1TV is to continue to go to the scene of suicide attacks, head of news and current affairs Abdullah Khenjani said.
“I think people deserve to know what is happening in their country,” he added.
However, they no longer rush to be the first at the scene, and wearing flak jackets and helmets is mandatory.
The New York Times’ “default position is ‘don’t go’ unless ... we agree there is some exceptional reason why you should,” bureau chief Rod Nordland said. “In most cases we’re saying there is no exceptional reason.”
The newspaper instead goes to hospitals or the homes of victims’ families to show the human suffering caused by such attacks, as it continues to seek ways of telling the story without going to the scene.
“The risk now of going to a bomb site, of getting hit by a second bomb ... outweighs the journalistic value in doing that,” Nordland said.
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