Caffeinated Politics

The news of Wisconsin journalist Shelly Kittleson being kidnapped in Iraq is unacceptable. News reports place her hometown as Monticello, Wisconsin.

Her work as a journalist specialising in the Middle East and Afghanistan is published in international, US, and Italian outlets. Iraq’s Ministry of Interior said that security forces have launched an operation to track down those responsible and secure her release.

Kittleson is one of those professional journalists who help illuminate what folks like you and me need to know about those forces who would prefer to lurk in the darkness. That is why I want to write this evening that when a reporter is kidnapped, detained, or harmed for doing their job, it is not just an attack on that person. Nope. It is a clear attack on the public’s right to know. We all suffer when truth‑seekers are punished for exposing corruption, documenting conflict, or giving voice to those who would otherwise be unheard. Silencing a reporter is an attempt to blind the world. That is why there is no place to stand other than on the side of journalists and the work they do. No matter where they do it.

This is certainly a time for more understanding of global events. Such an understanding comes to us via reporters and journalists who undertake what can only be termed perilous conditions in wartime. But it is morally indefensible to harm journalists because they are mere civilians whose purpose is to document events, not to fight. When reporters are threatened or killed, coverage becomes thinner and more dependent on official narratives. That vacuum is quickly filled by propaganda, rumor, and manipulation by tyrants.

The kidnapping of Kittleson is a heartbreaking reminder of how vulnerable frontline journalists are all too often across the globe. Every attack sends a message meant to intimidate all journalists. The threatening message is that they should temper their efforts, draw back their coverage, and curtail their contacts.

But that message never takes hold among the intrepid reporters and news professionals. They have a higher calling than to kneel to barbarians.

Truth has value. That is something that the kidnappers obviously are not aware of. When armed groups, governments, or criminal networks target journalists, they are declaring that truth itself is a threat. That is why the international community has a responsibility to treat every attack on a journalist as a direct assault on human rights.

Kittleson deserves to be brought home safely, and the world deserves a future where no reporter has to fear for their life simply for doing their job.