Is the Risk of Photojournalism Worth It?

This week all of us – public radio listeners and producers — were shocked and saddened by the death of NPR photojournalist David Gilkey.  He and his translator, Zabihullah “Zabi” Tamann, were killed while they were on assignment in Afghanistan, when the convoy they were traveling in was ambushed by Taliban.    Photojournalists like David go places most of us wouldn’t want to go, they take pictures of things we may not want to see… They risk their lives, hoping to send back that one image that just might change someone’s mind or open someone’s heart. 

David Gilkey spoke on a panel with some other public radio journalists a couple of years ago.   He’d just gotten back from Liberia, where he was covering the Ebola epidemic and he told us about a single photo he took – a picture of a little boy.

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