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Newsweek
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The year 2014 was a one of
contradictions, with stories only brought to life because of those journalists
willing to go where the stories were.
The
Sochi Olympics were a time of inclusion and world harmony as nations gathered
in Russia to put differences aside and celebrate the love of sport, but weeks
later Ukraine and Russia were at each other's doorsteps, playing a game of
political chess that would topple one country’s president, redraw borders, and
forever alter Russia’s world image.
The U.S. legalized gay marriage in many
states, while countries like Uganda and India took leaps backward, arresting
gay people in the name of civility.
Health care reform took hold in
America, opening access to medical care, but on the other side of the planet
Polio was making a comeback in Pakistan and the Ebola virus was ravaging West
Africa.
During the yearly U.N. general counsel meeting,
nations talked of peace and yet Syria and Iraq burned under the onslaught of
ISIS, girls were kidnapped by Boko Haram and militias slaughtered each other in
the Central African Republic.
The
journalists below are some of the people who felt compelled to take the risks,
to tell the stories, to go deeper than the vast majority would ever dream, so
that we could better understand what is happening around the globe. Their
pictures took us to the front lines, often at great danger to themselves. In
some cases, they got too close and tragically we are now deprived from seeing
the world as they saw it.
This
is not every photojournalist we lost in 2014, this is only one small group, representative
of the nearly 100
journalists who
died while performing their job. They brought us the news we should know
and reminded and why we should care.
If
there is any lesson to be taken, it is this: pay attention, act, question and
care for each other.—Shaminder Dulai
JAMES FOLEY
James Foley reported
from conflict zones in Syria, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan, working primarily
for GlobalPost and Agence-France Press. His striking, intimate video dispatches
from conflict zones, such as this unflinching look at an ambush on a
101st Airborne company in Afghanistan, demonstrated his dedication to
foreign reporting. He was captured while reporting in Libya in 2011 but
eventually released. As the country's civil war escalated, Foley reported for
AFP and GlobalPost from Syria; he was captured in 2012 and killed by ISIS in
2014.—Jared T. Miller
ANJA NIEDRINGHAUS
Anja Niedrinhaus, a
former chief photographer for the European Pressphoto Agency, was part of the
Associated Press team that won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News
Photography for their work in Iraq. She reported from Frankfurt, Germany;
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina; and Moscow, and the former Yugoslavia,
as well as Afghanistan, Pakistan and throughout the Middle East. Colleagues
praised her fearlessness and leadership.
Niedrinhaus was killed on April 4,
covering the presidential election in Afghanistan. She was 48. An Afghan police
commander opened fire on the car she and her friend, fellow reporter Kathy
Gannon, were waiting in at a checkpoint. The commander was later sentenced to
death. —Tzirel Kaminetzky
LUKE SOMERS
By all accounts Luke
Somers was the boy next door, driven by a passion to expose views of the
"other" and challenge assumptions. He was also kind hearted and
picked up his camera for the right reasons. "He never called with demands
that his pictures weren't being used enough, he just wanted to show people that
Yemen was more than car bombs and terror," said Ossie Ikeogu, one of the
photo editors at his agency Demotix, who got to know Somers over the years.
Ikeogu remembers first meeting the young man and thinking he was a teacher with
a hobby, but a look at his portfolio revealed Somers was more than the
unassuming translator for hire in Yemen. "He was always looking to paint a
picture that wasn't what we always see in the Western media," said Ikeogu.
He started with protests, but realized he preferred documenting the people in
the market, the aftermaths of terrorism for citizens and clashes of culture,
what Ikeogu calls the "winds of change" in the country, “anything
that captured a flavor and sense of daily life."
He was aware of the
danger, but not afraid, and felt comfortable in Yemen according to Ikeogu. At
first he wasn't worried when Somers didn't return his phone calls, but a few
days later that changed. For months Ikeogu called his phone with no answer,
finally he sent a last email with the subject line "Hope you're ok."
Somers had been kidnapped in Sana'a, Yemen, in September 2013. In December 2014
he appeared with militants demanding the U.S. give in to their demands in
exchange for him. Somers was killed by Al-Qaeda militants during a rescue
attempt by U.S. commandos in Yemen. He was 33. —Shaminder Dulai
CAMILLE LEPAGE
Camille Lepage, 26 at
the time of her death in Central African Republic, was a French photojournalist
who had based herself in South Sudan two years earlier, covering the country's
development following independence in 2011. After studying at Southampton
Solent University in the U.K., she was drawn to African issues, telling
Petapixel in 2013 that "I can’t accept that people’s tragedies are
silenced simply because no one can make money out of them." In the last
days of her life she embedded with a Christian anti-Balaka militia, in
opposition to the Muslim-dominated ruling faction, in the western part of
Central African Republic. She was the first foreign journalist to die covering
the country's violent conflict. —Jared T. Miller
MICHEL DU CILLE
Michel du Cille was
coming off a 21-day Ebola quarantine and a few weeks of rest when he decided he
had to go back to west Africa to continue documenting the devastating effects
of the virus. As his co-workers and friends from past trips would write, du
Cille was like that, driven by a calling to always get the story.
Before his
trip, the three-time Pulitzer Prize winner reportedly told his employers at The Washington Post, “I have had to
check my emotions, and I use those emotions to make sure I’m telling the story
in the right way, to make sure I’m using my sense of respect, my sense of
dignity, to show images to the world and to do the right thing by the
subjects.” He collapsed while walking on foot from a village in Liberia's Bong
County, and died of an apparent heart attack on December 11. He was 58.
—Shaminder Dulai
AUNG KYAW NAING
Aung Kyaw Naing, also
known as Par Gyi, was a Burmese freelance journalist and political activist
from Rangoon working along the Burma-Thai border. His work appeared in many
local Burmese media outlets such as The Voice, Eleven
Media and Yangon Times. He was detained
and killed by Burmese military while covering armed clashes between the Burmese
army and Karen ethnic rebels.
Activists and supporters protested the killing of
Naing and called for an inquiry into his death, his wife saying she believed he
was tortured while in military custody. The Myanmar National Human Rights
Commission reported multiple injuries to his body, including several gunshot
wounds, discovered after after his body was exhumed in November. —Tzirel
Kaminetzky
SIMONE CAMILLI
Simone Camilli, 35,
an Associated Press videographer, was reporting in Gaza over the summer when he
was killed along with his translator Ali Shehda Abu Afash by an unexploded
missile thought to be of Israeli origin while it was being defused.
Hired by
the AP in Rome in 2005, Camilli frequently covered Israel and Gaza, basing
himself recently in Beirut. He co-produced a 2011 documentary with Pietro
Bellorini, About Gaza, which
detailed the roots of the conflict and featured interviews with Gazans about
life in the region. —Jared T. Miller
ANDREI STENIN
Andrei Stenin, 33,
was a Russian photojournalist who contributed to news organizations such as
Reuters, Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and RIA Novosti. Stenin covered
conflicts in Egypt, Syria, Libya and Gaza before covering the war in eastern
Ukraine. It is thought that he was embedded with Russian-backed combatants when
he went missing. His death was confirmed on September 3. —Michael Ip
ANDREA ROCCHELLI
Andrea Rocchelli was
in Sloviansk, Ukraine, covering skirmishes between the Ukrainian army and pro-Russia
separatists, when he was killed by a mortar shell along with his fixer and
another journalist. He founded the Italian photo agency Cesura in 2008, and
contributed to Newsweek and
Le Monde, among other publications. He had also covered the conflict in
Afghanistan and the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Libya; here, this photo taken 12
days before his death on May 12, shows 10 orphans seeking refuge from
overnight bombings in Sloviansk. —Jared T. Miller
MOUAZ ALOMAR (Abu Mehdi Al Hamwi)
The 17-year-old freelance
photographer died, according to reports, while uploading footage of a bombing
he recorded earlier in the day on April 25. He was published widely through
social media. —Tzirel Kaminetzky
ALI MUSTAFA
Canadian-born
freelance journalist Ali Mustafa went to Syria to cover the gaps he felt were
missing in mainstream media. As he has said "The only way I could truly get a sense
of the reality on the ground was to go there to figure it out for myself."
Beyond his photographic contribution to as a SIPA press photographer, he also
kept an active Instagram and Twitter account. One of his last posts on Twitter,
dated soon before his March 9 death, links to a photo of a young boy carrying a
sack of objects near a demolished home. He has stated that his aim was to
portray "the way war impacts us as human beings." He was killed
during an airstrike in Syria. —Tzirel Kaminetzky
TURAD MOHAMED AL-ZAHOURI
Turad Mohamed al-Zahouri, a citizen journalist
from Syria, died February 20 in Arsal, Lebanon, from injuries sustained from a
mortar shell that landed near him in Yabroud, Syria. He was the photographer
for Al-Qusair Lens, a Facebook page that covered events in Al-Qusair and
surrounding areas. —Michael Ip
FRANKLIN
REYES
Franklin Reyes was
born in Havana, and joined the AP's team in Cuba in 2009 after beginning his
career at a local, state-run newspaper. At the time of his death, Reyes was
working on a story about the Cuban economy; he died in a car accident while
returning from an assignment in Havana. This photo from June 7, 2012 shows the
Jose Marti Antillana de Acero iron and steel mill in Havana, Cuba. —Jared T.
Miller
Source: http://www.newsweek.com
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