
USA added to list of most dangerous countries for journalists - kevmo
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/united-states-added-list-most-dangerous-countries-journalists-first-time-n949676
======
Brendinooo
For what it's worth, the word "dangerous" never appears in the report, unless
my Find feature isn't working well in the PDF.

"Dangerous" is a value judgment; the PDF is a report on journalists who were
"killed, detained, held hostage, or missing." Note that this doesn't include
harassment, another metric that could be possibly quantified and used to
inform a theoretical "danger" ranking.

I guess what I'm leaning towards is that NBC News has a lot of spin in this
piece. The headline makes you think it's about the US. The lede cites
Khashoggi and tries to conflate it with general hostility towards the media in
the United States, but his death was a very different situation (and different
country!). Then it cites the global figure without saying "worldwide" in the
paragraph, while never explicitly saying that the total death count in the US
is 6. The report also shows that zero journalists were jailed in the US and
zero were taken hostage.

I don't wish to minimize anyone's death. But the piece gives off a feeling
that the US is becoming Saudi Arabia, yet the reason it's in this list at all
is because of two events that don't really feel systemic: Capital Gazette, and
hurricanes. (Could argue that mass shootings feel systemic in the US, but not
mass shootings targeting journalists. No, I don't feel great trying to make
that distinction.)

ADDENDUM:

How many people are working in the US as journalists? A quick search was tough
to nail down. And, even with the mass shooting that hopefully proves to be a
statistical anomaly, how does the deaths per 100,000 in the US compare to the
3.6 per 100,000 in the US's workplace at large?[0]

Also, edited this to remove my confusion about where Khashoggi died.

\----------

[0]: [https://247wallst.com/special-report/2018/01/02/25-most-
dang...](https://247wallst.com/special-report/2018/01/02/25-most-dangerous-
jobs-in-america/)

~~~
magduf
>Could argue that mass shootings feel systemic in the US, but not mass
shootings targeting journalists.

I would argue that mass shootings in the US are a very good reason not to
raise any kids here or send them to school here, considering many of those
shootings were in schools, and many schoolchildren (or college students) have
died in those shootings. In fact, I'd say students are the one group that
should be most worried about mass shootings, just judging by evidence.

~~~
Brendinooo
This comment takes us off-track a bit, but:

~130,000 K-12 schools in the US, public and private[0]

94 "gun violence" incidents in schools in 2018[1]. This is "each and every
instance a gun is brandished, is fired, or a bullet hits school property for
any reason, regardless of the number of victims, time of day, or day of week"
\- so far more broad than mass shootings alone.

Let's say each incident happened at a different school: that's a 0.072% chance
that _something_ happens with a gun at your school in a year. If those numbers
are the same each year (and that hasn't been the case; 2018 is higher than
normal), it's a ~1% chance that something happens at your school over 13 years
of schooling. Without doing a ton of research, I'm sure the odds would be much
more or less depending on the school you pick.

Is that enough for you to keep your kid out of school? That's for you to
decide. But bringing it back to my point - evaluating the risk isn't as simple
as giving a body count, making "dangerous" a subjective term.

[0]:
[https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=84](https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=84)

[1]: [https://www.vox.com/2018/12/10/18134232/gun-violence-
schools...](https://www.vox.com/2018/12/10/18134232/gun-violence-schools-mass-
shootings)

~~~
weberc2
Further, what is the variance across schools? If you don’t send your child to
a school in a dodgy neighborhood, can you expect a significant drop in risk?
If so, how much?

~~~
magduf
Columbine High School was not in a "dodgy neighborhood". Nor was the shooting
at that school in Florida a year or two ago. Nor was Virginia Tech in 2008.

In fact, I don't think any of the mass shootings in American schools have been
in poor schools at all. Of course, they have their own problems with violence
stemming from gang activity and poverty, but the mass shootings are in schools
with pretty well-off students.

~~~
weberc2
My question was posted in the context of its thread. Specifically, the figures
we were discussing were about "gun related incidents", not mass shootings; the
OP took the time to explain that these included things like brandishing a
firearm or bullets striking school property whether or not there was a shooter
on the property or someone got hurt. I would expect these sorts of incidents
to happen more often in more violent communities; mass school shootings seem
like they follow a different pattern than other kinds of gun violence.

------
danielvf
This list is by actual deaths during the year, not a prediction of future
danger or government policies. The US is on the list this year because of a
mass shooting at a newspaper.

The full PDF report is much more interesting than the article.
[https://rsf.org/sites/default/files/worldwilde_round-
up.pdf](https://rsf.org/sites/default/files/worldwilde_round-up.pdf)

The report also notes that worldwide journalist deaths are down, and for the
first time in 15 years, no journalist deaths in Iraq.

~~~
cf141q5325
>The US is on the list this year because of a mass shooting at a newspaper.

The Annapolis shooting to be precise.

>Meanwhile, the shooting deaths of five employees of the Capital Gazette
newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland, in June propelled the United States into the
ranks of the most dangerous countries for the first time.

~~~
danielvf
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_Gazette_shooting](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_Gazette_shooting)

------
sys_64738
Khashoggi was killed in Turkey so does that really count as an American death?
Perhaps the fact that the USA didn't impose sanctions on the country alleged
to be involved influenced that view.

