Wall of honor
Steven Vincent According to statistics, in 1035 the professional journalists killed in the past 15 years. Syria and Mexico are the deadliest countries for reporters, therefore, journalist job is considered dangerous. The Journalists Memorial pays tribute to reporters, photographers and broadcasters who have died reporting the news. The names of 2,323 individuals from all around the world are etched on the glass panels of the soaring, two-story structure. There are a lot of journalists who deserve to be unforgettable. One of them is Steven Charles Vincent. He was born in Washington December 31, in 1955. He was an American author and journalist. Steven Vincent writing career began in local newspaper, The East Villager. He wrote, edited, laid out and oversaw the publication of each month's edition about seven years, he also became deeply involved in local issues. In the late 1980s Vincent began his career as a writer of fiction and essays, publishing in various literary magazines and booklets. Steven Charles Vincent specializing in stories of art and archaeological theft, fraud and forgery, but a decade of covering the art world left him yearning for new and more meaningful challenges. On the 11th of September, in 2001 is when his life as a journalist changed dramatically. Vincent saw United Flight 175 strike Tower Two, watched the collapse of the World Trade Center, and knew the world had forever changed. He gave up writing about art and methodically set up turning himself into a war correspondent. In 2003, after learning that his friend, the artist Steve Mumford, had gone to Baghdad following the start of the Iraq War, Vincent went as well, first in 2003, then again in 2004, operating freely as a journalist, traveling through the country without so much as a cell phone, interviewing the local populace, observing the reality of life on the ground. In 2004, he published In the Red Zone: A Journey Into the Soul of Iraq, as well as a blog about his travels. In April 2005 he went back to Iraq and he did not take into account that this travel is the last one in Vincent life. This time he was planning to spend 3 months in the southern city of Basra, but that time there was The Basra prison incident it was an event involving British troops in Basra, Iraq. The city was, in fact, becoming a war zone where Christians were persecuted, alcohol sellers were killed on the streets and operators of music or video stores was firebombed. Three months after the day he had arrived, Vincent and his translator went to a Basra money exchange after spending the day doing interviews. When they came back out, they were kidnapped off the street by men in police uniforms driving a white police truck. They were gagged, taken to an unknown place where for five hours they were beaten and then shot. They were found by British and Iraqi policemen but Vincent and his translater were dead. It is generally accepted that Vincent was murdered because of his criticism in the area. On the 31st of July, The New York Times printed Vincent‘s last piece Switched Off in Basra in which he noted the increasing invasion of the Basra police force by Islamic extremists. It has been thirteen years since journalist Steven Vincent, an idealistic war reporter and former art critic, was kidnapped and murdered in Iraq, but no one has forgotten his life. He will live forever in Newseum, journalists memorial. |