Journalists, both foreign and local face a variety of dangers everyday. When they report on events, there are always people who disagree with their views and are in danger of retaliation from extremists.

Syria is known to be an especially harsh environment for foreign journalists. Countries that do not have established freedom of the press seek to oppress opposing viewpoints and silence critics. This is why it is very important that journalists report on events going on in these countries. Without the journalists to act as a check on the governments, there may be horrible atrocities that never come to light. The citizens of the countries will not have a balanced viewpoint of what is going on and will only hear one side of the story, the government’s. It was mentioned in one of the articles that Syrians only had access to the government’s point of view before local and foreign journalists became involved.

Without journalists to report on these stories, it may become impossible for the situation to improve. There will be no foreign government pressure or sanctions to improve conditions and the local citizens may not even be aware of the extent of the situations that they are in.