Rick Hutzell is a member of the Fallen Journalists Memorial Foundation’s board of advisers. He left the Capital Gazette in 2021 and now publishes the newsletter Meanwhile, in Annapolis.
In wartime, the sacrifices journalists and photojournalists make become distressingly clear.
Brett Renaud, Pierre Zakrzewski, Oleksandra Kuvshynova, Yevhenii Sakun, Oksana Baulina and Maks Levin died covering Russia’s war on Ukraine. They were professionals who put themselves at risk to report the truth. Others are doing that same work today.
I’m afraid more will die.
As Americans, we take a free press for granted. We can choose among news networks, national and local newspapers, radio stations and Internet feeds. That is not true in Russia, where dictator Vladimir Putin has strangled independent voices to ensure his narrative is the only one his nation hears. More than 150 independent journalists have fled the country or are hiding to avoid arrest.