Full circle moments are what Angela Quintal is thinking about as another year draws to a close. A year in which 42 journalists globally were killed doing their jobs.
The Africa coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is in a pensive mood speaking during a home visit to Durban. She’s visiting her partner of 24 years “who everyone knows as Mtura” and her sisters (because they cook better than she does). It’s a working holiday that she’s hoping will allow for squeezing in more books to read.
It’s been a year of Covid-19 disruption and blows to the media have been brutal. Journalists in the field have reported with the threat of contracting the virus; there have been job bloodbaths, salary cuts and ultimately a toll in lives lost – those 42 people, according to the International Federation of Journalists.