The great concern is that year after year, rising numbers of journalists are being killed in pursuit of their work. They are increasingly seen as not being neutral but rather as combatants by one side or the other.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the dangers journalists face due to their perceived bias in conflict zones.
Salman Rushdie emphasizes the concerning trend of increasing violence against journalists who are often targeted for their work. Rather than being seen as impartial observers, many journalists are viewed as participants in conflicts, making their pursuit of truth increasingly perilous.
In practice
During a speech at a press freedom event, one might use this quote to highlight the increasing risks journalists face.
I've been fascinated by Machiavelli since I was very young. I've always felt that he had a bad rap from history, and that he was actually a person quite unlike what we now think of as Machiavellian. He was a republican. He disliked totalitarian government.
Killing people because you don't like their ideas - it's a bad thing.
faith without doubt is addiction
I am clearly vulnerable to these more passionate and volatile unstable relationships. I am trying to not be so vulnerable.
In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of 'respect.' What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around the world in religion's dreaded name?
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible.
The really tough thing would have been to decide to take Woodward and Bernstein off the story. They were carrying the coal for us - in that their stories were right.
As a journalist, I know what it is like to incur the self-righteous wrath of people who denounce you for things you didn't say or didn't mean.
I suppose, in the end, we journalists try - or should try - to be the first impartial witnesses of history. If we have any reason for our existence, the least must be our ability to report history as it happens so that no one can say: 'we didn't know - no one told us.'
I have been asking if I'm an activist or a journalist. And my answer is very simple. I'm just a journalist who asks questions.
I don't think journalism changes. It's about digging into stories and telling them well. The basic tenets of great reporting stay the same while things around it change. Technology has made reporting easier, but it has also caused job loss. Social media has increased discussion around topics, but it has its own challenges at times.
I joined the 'Times' in 1972, and I came with the mark of Cain on me because I was clearly against the war. But my editor, Abe Rosenthal, he hired me because he liked stories. He used to come to the Washington bureau and almost literally pat me on the head and say, 'How is my little Commie today? What do you have for me?'
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