Mohammed Nabbous
Citizen journalism. A term used recently, and most commonly in America, to denote those upset with the government due to taxes they think are so high. In other parts of the world, it means something else. It means speaking a government that does not belong to you. It means reporting on false imprisonment, government-sanctioned violence, it means reporting on unjust persecution. It means fear being imprisoned, tortured, or killed.
Mohammed Nabbous was a citizen journalist.
He was killed two days ago.
We here in America cry and complain about keeping an eye on our government for high taxes and quality of life. He was trying to report on a government that imprisoned, tortured, and killed its people. I never met him and only heard of him in news reports. He leaves behind a pregnant wife.
Puts things in perspective.
So whenever we ‘citizen journalists’ forget the purpose of what we do and get tempted to fall into the culture of vanity or personalities, maybe it would do good to remember that the problems are what we should try to address – that it’s about bringing out information. Mohammed Nabbous died for what we take for granted.