A gun-carrying journalist, and rightly so
I frequently advise journalists not to carry arms because doing so “can undermine your status as an observer,” which in violent and lawless societies is precisely what keeps reporters safe.
But I make an exception for Cándido Figueredo Ruíz, a Paraguayan crime reporter who has been threatened, shot at, and attacked so many times that he barely leaves his home. When he does, he’s surrounded by a phalanx of heavily armed bodyguards. He carries his own Glock automatic handgun.
Figueredo, 59, is a correspondent for the national daily, ABC Color, in Pedro Juan Caballero, a Paraguayan city that borders Brazil. The town is a global hub for drug trafficking and smuggling, and after more than 20 years of naming names Figueredo is a marked man.
“It never passed through my head to arm myself,” Figueredo told me in a recent interview. “But at the end of the day, you can’t count on someone else to risk their life for yours. I understand people who criticize me for being armed. I just ask them to live with me for one week. I think they will change their opinion.”
In recognition of his fearless reporting, Figueredo will receive the Committee to Protect Journalists’ International Press Freedom Award at a gala dinner this month in New York. He will be honored alongside journalists from Syria, Ethiopia, and Malaysia who, like him, have put their life and liberty on the line to bring people the news.
Read more by CPJ’s Executive Director at CJR.
Image: John Otis