The life of a foreign correspondent

Just when you think your life is bad, you read about a guy who has been shot at in Iraq and taken hostage by pirates in Somalia.

Today's Web edition of BBC News featured a story about Colin Freeman, the chief foreign correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph. Apparently, while working in Iraq and Somalia, Freeman had more luck being in the news than writing the stories.

According to Freeman's piece, for many years, journalists were almost given a free pass in war zones. They were seen similarly to Red Cross workers or other aide officials. Both sides of the conflict understood that journalists were there to report on the conflict, not fight the battles with one side or another.

In today's world, all that has changed.

Freeman said that nowadays groups like al-Qaeda don't really care who they kill, as long as they are hurting their enemy somehow. Plus, these groups no longer need foreign reporters to tell their sides of the story. They have their own television stations or they use the Internet to spread their message. In a sense, reporters are no use to them. Reporters are completely expendable, especially if they get in the group's way somehow.

For Freeman, these new attitudes toward foreign correspondence led him to be wounded and almost killed by a mob in Iraq. But he might have been one of the lucky ones amongst his colleagues. Freeman said that out of the freelance journalists that stayed in Baghdad's al-Dulaimi hotel, no fewer than six ended up being kidnapped.

But if Freeman was lucky for not being kidnapped in Iraq, his luck ran out in Somalia. While researching a story about piracy, Freeman was kidnapped and held hostage in a cave for six weeks. His claims that he was a journalist and should not be held hostage held no creedance with his captors.

For me, Freeman's story is inspiring in the sense that he would put his life on the line for the profession that he loves. But then again, it also brings me back to earth. There are plenty of days when I think my life is just the worst in the world. Then I read about people like Freeman or Aliaksei Karol and Frank Nyakairu, who have both faced bodily and financial harm for reporting on the stories that matter. Clearly, my problems really aren't that bad, and I can only hope to be half as courageous as those three men.