Surat Terakhir Seorang Editor

Saya pernah mengunggah artikel (atau lebih tepatnya surat) ini di blog saya di multiply, tahun 2009 lalu. Sekarang, rasanya saya ingin berbagi lagi isi surat ini. Ini cerita sedih sekaligus juga menggugah, yang ditulis oleh editor asal Sri Lanka Lasantha Wickramatunga di The Sunday Leader. Setelah menulis artikel-opini ini Lasantha tewas dibunuh, diberondong peluru dari senapan mesin. Artikel ini dikirim oleh teman saya di India, Deepa Anappara. Here is the link: http://www.thesundayleader.lk/20090111/editorial-.htm.

No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. In the course of the past few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories and now especially the last.