Gillian Horn
Staff Writer
There is a double standard when it comes to sending “Westerners” to Afghanistan on a job. Soldiers go knowing they could potentially be killed, but journalists enter the same battlefield but expect to go unharmed.
That all changed on April 4 when Pulitzer-Prize winning photo journalist Anja Niedringhaus was killed, and journalist Kathy Gannon was seriously wounded while on site for The Associated Press.
An Afghan security insider, identified as Naqibullah, stopped the convoy in which Niedringhaus and Gannon were traveling and opened fire. Niedringhaus died immediately while Gannon, who was shot three times in the wrist and shoulder, was rushed to surgery and later flown to Kabul once she was stable.
While it may not seem like a surprise that two Westerners were killed in a nation who has been resisting Western help for years, this was the first known insider shooting of journalists.
Niedringhaus and Gannon have been an integral part of photographing and reporting the goings on in the Middle East. Their work has helped to keep us Westerners informed about what our soldiers are doing so far away from home.
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