Danger in Truth-Telling

It never makes sense to kidnap or kill the world’s messengers. Yet last month leftist guerrillas in Colombia abducted two freelancers working for The Times: Ruth Morris, 35, a British-born reporter who was reared in Los Angeles, and American photographer Scott Dalton, 34.

Set free last weekend, the two say that in the 11 days their captors held them near the border with Venezuela they were worried about their families and frightened. But their attitudes after their release reflect the sort of cool courage it takes to seek the truth in dangerous places. “There is not a hungry mosquito left in the Arauca jungle,” Morris said -- a remarkably good-natured reference to one of the many discomforts she and Dalton endured before their kidnappers turned them over to the Red Cross.

Miserable though those days and nights were, Morris and Dalton were luckier than many of their colleagues. In Colombia alone, combatants have killed more than 30 of their nation’s journalists in the last 10 years. That slaughter makes the South American country the most dangerous place for newspeople in this hemisphere. But it’s still safer than Algeria, where twice that many journalists were killed in the same period.

In 2001, worldwide, 37 journalists were murdered or killed in cross-fire. Last year, tyrants, zealots and combat zones were relatively kind to journalists, taking only 19 lives -- though one was the particularly grisly murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, kidnapped and then beheaded on videotape by Islamist extremists.

Perhaps matching the viciousness of that crime was the murder of award-winning investigative reporter Tim Lopes, a Brazilian who had been poking around the operation of drug traffickers. Witnesses say Lopes was beaten, shot in the feet to prevent him from escaping and finally run through with a sword.

Morris said her captors called the kidnapping a mistake. Ultimately, targeting journalists always is. Getting the facts, sorting out truth, is a human imperative. You’re reading about these cases because other reporters, unintimidated, told the story. Someone always will.