SHOCKING PIX! Journalists in the line of fire

In times when journalism is stereotyped by the scourges of paid news and sensationalism, one tends to ignore the unparalleled bravado with which mediapersons across the world often take bullets -- just to ensure that the world gets to see the correct picture, the world gets to know the news of a crisis situation.

Crimes against journalists continue to escalate throughout the world, with scores of them often ending up losing their lives, being brutally injured or abducted.

With no decrease in the number of fearless scribes still daring the line of fire on a regular basis, fortunately it can be stated that such insurmountable threats have not been able to completely choke the spirit of journalism.

Rediff.com presents some pictures to show how journalists put to risk their lives to dig out that inside story.

This award-winning picture shows Kenji Nagai, a Japanese videographer working with AFP, being killed during a demonstration in Myanmar's Yangon on September 7, 2007.

Nagai, 50, was shot by soldiers as they fired to disperse the crowd. He succumbed to his injuries later.

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A policeman strikes AFP photojournalist Patricia Melo during the Portuguese general strike by workers angered by austerity measures, in Lisbon, on March 22, 2012.

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This aerial picture shows locals scatter as a foreign journalist assists Swedish cameraman Martin Adler (C), immediately after he was shot in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, on June 23, 2006.

A gunman shot dead at close range a Swedish television cameraman covering a pro-Islamist demonstration in Mogadishu in  violence that racked the Horn of Africa nation despite peace efforts.

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Doctors and medics attend to Getty photographer Chris Hondros (foreground) and photojournalist Tim Hetherington (obscured) at a Misrata hospital in Libya, on April 20, 2011.

The two photojournalists -- Oscar-nominated filmmaker and photographer Hetherington and Getty photographer Hondros -- were killed after coming under fire in the besieged Libyan town of Misrata. Doctors at a hospital in Misrata had said Hetherington had died while Hondros was in critical condition. Getty Images later released a statement saying Hondros had died of his injuries.  

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An Israeli soldier points his gun at a Palestinian journalist during clashes with Palestinians demonstrating over a disputed plot of land near Rafah, in Gaza Strip, December 5, 1997.

Israeli soldiers shot and wounded 5 Palestinians including an Associated Press cameraman as the army prepared to erect a military outpost.

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Reuters Congo correspondent David Lewis (L) takes cover under a United Nations armoured car during machine gun and mortar fire in Kinshasa in this November 11, 2006 picture.

The initial crackle of small arms fire gave way to an all-out battle with mortar bombs and RPGs flying across the boulevard and crashing into buildings in the heart of Kinshasa.  

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Bassam Masoud, a cameraman working for Reuters Television can be seen with wounds in his head and hand moments after an explosion killed at least three people and wounded several in the area where the Israeli army has been conducting an operation in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafa, on August 3, 2004.

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French photographer Remi Ochlik is seen in this picture taken in Cairo, Egypt, on November 23, 2011.  French photographer Remi Ochlik and American correspondent Marie Colvin were killed on February 22, 2012 in the besieged Syrian city of Homs when rockets fired by government forces hit the house they were staying in, opposition activists and witnesses said.

At least two other journalists and possibly more were wounded in the attack, the Syrian Network for Human Rights said. Colvin and Ochlik were both prize-winning veterans of wars in the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere. 

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Journalists, including New York Times photographers Tyler Hicks (R- in glasses) and Lynsey Addario (far L), Getty Images photographer John Moore (2nd L), freelance photographer Holly Pickett (3rdL) and freelancer Philip Poupin (4th L) run for cover during a bombing run by Libyan government planes at a checkpoint near the oil refinery of Ras Lanuf, on March 11, 2011.

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A member of the press lies on the ground after being attacked by mobs while soldiers surround him in Cairo, Egypt, on February 3, 2011.

The United States and Britain condemned the intimidation of foreign reporters covering protests against former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

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Image shows part of the April 10, 2010 video footage taken by Reuters cameraman Hiro Muramoto before he was shot in the chest. The seven minutes of film, some of the last video Muramoto ever took, illustrate how a scrappy street protest turned deadly on a balmy Bangkok night.

Muramoto, 43, a father of two young children, died from a gunshot wound to the chest, his killer unknown. His camera was returned to Reuters by the protesters. It is not known if the footage was his very last.

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Reuters photographer Yiorgos Karahalis (2nd R) of Greece runs from an exploding sound and light grenade thrown by Israeli troops as he covers a violent protest against Israel's security fence in the West Bank village of Bilin, on March 28, 2008. 

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A photographer is shoved onto the ground as leftist Ecuador leader Rafael Correa is mobbed by cheering supporters after casting his vote at a school in Quito, on October 15, 2006.

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A framed picture of Italian journalist Maria Grazia Cutuli stands on her coffin during her funeral in Catania Cattedral, on November 24, 2001. Cutuli, a reporter with Corriere della Serra, and El Mundo Spanish journalist Julio Fuentes were killed with Reuters photographer Aziz Haidari and cameraman Harry Burton when unidentified gunmen ambushed their convoy on the road to Jalalabad to Kabul, on November 19, 2001.

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Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana (R) films riots in Basra, Iraq, in this August 10, 2003 file photo. Dana was shot dead on August 17, 2003 while working near a U.S.-run prison on the outskirts of Baghdad, witnesses said. A spokesman for the administration
confirmed a journalist had been killed and said an investigation was under way.

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Amer Jaber, a Palestinian cameraman who works for the American television network ABC, falls to the stone-strewn streets as he is hit in the leg with a rubber-coated bullet fired by Israeli soldiers, on October 6, 2000 in Hebron during violent clashes.

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A Galatasaray soccer fan helps a stricken cameraman after rioting between rival supporters before the UEFA Cup final in central Copenhagen, Denmark, on May 17, 2000.

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South Florida Sun-Sentinel photographer Michael Laughlin, stands behind Haitian SWAT police just as he was hit by a bullet from unknown gunmen in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on March 7, 2004. Suspected supporters of exiled Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide sprayed gunfire into a crowd of thousands of jubilant revelers outside the National Palace, killing at least six people, including a Spanish journalist, and wounding 18.

The wounded included two Haiti police officers and American journalist Michael Laughlin of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel newspaper, who was shot in face and shoulder. Hospital officials said the dead included Spaniard Ricardo Ortega, a correspondent for the Antena 3 Spanish television station.

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People, including journalists, run for cover as metro police officers open fire during clashes believed to be linked to anti-foreigner violence in Reiger Park informal settlement in South Africa, on May 20, 2008.  

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APTN cameraman Miguel Gil Moreno (R), follows a Kosovo Liberation Army member in this June 1998 file photo in the province of Kosovo while covering the escalating conflict between ethnic Albanian fighters and Serb forces.

Moreno and Reuters reporter Kurt Schork, were killed and two other journalists were wounded during an ambush, May 24, 1998, in Sierra Leone. Then U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan had blamed the attack on suspected rebels.

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Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is pictured in this photo, one of two images sent in an e-mail by his kidnappers. The group that apparently kidnapped Pearl in Pakistan sent e-mail to news organisations, on January 30, 2002 threatening to kill him within 24 hours unless the U.S. government released Pakistani prisoners held in the Afghan war.

The e-mail, sent to the Wall Street Journal, CNN and The New York Times, among others, accused Pearl of being a spy for Israel
and it also warned other U.S. journalists in Pakistan to leave the country.

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