Molhem Barakat

Jim Brumm cites Foreign Policy’s “key sentence” that Molhem Barakat was not on assignment for Reuters [Reuters chief editor ‘salutes’ teenager killed in Syria], thus absolving Reuters safety rules in his tragic death. 

But a much more important “key sentence” is the following: “Photographer Stanislav Krupar told journalist Corey Pein, who was one of the first to raise questions about this case, that Barakat was paid as little as $100 for a set of 10 or more photographs. Barakat used this money, according to Haddad, to improve the living conditions of his mother and father, who struggled with poverty even before the uprising and whose financial situation only worsened with the war.”

$10 or less for each photo taken under the most difficult and dangerous conditions? If true, let this fact speak for itself at a time when Reuters new régime's top brass and cronies are getting such huge perks as $1-million signing bonuses and hugely inflated salaries.

Of course this inherent exploitative greed in the human animal is not the sole province of the Reuters’ new czars. The ancien régime also has much to answer for.

When the Concorde crashed in Paris in 2000, Reuters secured exclusive photos of the scene from three young Hungarian students who happened to be taking pictures at the airport at the time. The in-house magazine, if my memory serves me right, then bragged that the naive young Hungarians had been fobbed off with the usual Reuters photo fee of something like $300.

If management had had an ounce of decency - OK, stupid premise, a contradiction in terms - it would have given those three kids $5,000, $10,000 or more - an amount more honourably earned than the millions in bonuses, perks and shares our leaders were then continually showering themselves with. ■