In Memorium

This evening the Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki Moon, visits the BBC's Broadcasting House to dedicate a new sculpture on the roof. It's called "Breathing" and was commissioned from the Spanish artist, Jaume Plensa. It's in commemoration of all who have died in the course of trying to report the news. There is a website which remembers the BBC staff who have died and also shows the sculpture which will be lit at ten every evening and shine a pencil laser beam of light 900 metres into the air. The event is co-hosted with the International News Safety Institute who record all news and media personnel who are killed in the course of reporting the news. It's hoped this new London landmark will remind people of the sacrifices made by news teams in the cause of free speech. There is also a James Fenton poem, "Memorial", also to mark those who've been killed:

We spoke, we chose to speak of war and strife –

a task a fine ambition sought –

and some might say, who shared our work,

our life: that praise was dearly bought.

Drivers, interpreters, these were our friends.

These we loved. These we were trusted by.

The shocked hand wipes the blood across the lens.

The lens looks to the sky.

Most died by mischance. Some seemed honour-bound

to take the lonely, peerless track

conceiving danger as a testing ground

to which they must go back

till the tongue fell silent and they crossed

beyond the realm of time and fear.

Death waved them through the checkpoint. They were lost.

All have their story here.

James Fenton

(Hear it read by the BBC's Harriet Cass)

The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon's speech is here.

Comments

[Danny Sanchez]

It's wonderful that the BBC has done this. People need a reminder of the price many journalists pay to shed light on what's happening in troubled parts of the world.