Veronica Guerin

Must it all end like this? I lit a candle on your name, Veronica. I light a candle for all the 196 journalists that died during the 6 years past your death.
What's my duty? We do not need any journals to write about this. We have blogs, chats, spaces, websites and forums.
What do we use them for? To talk about how you shot yourself in the leg for publicity.
I saw you speak at the Committee To Protect Journalists. So fresh, so serious, so humble, so shy. Were you to end like that? Maybe you were, 'cause your weren't at all interested in saving your own credibility. You just talked about what was important (something no one cared about, as you once said). Funny how no one realises what is important untill someone is dead. Like you.
You always said "Do not let them see I'm afraid".
You must never let them see how frightened you are... they mustn't smell fear.
But it's so horrible! It is real fear you feel, trembling in your lungs, shaking with your panic, when you visit those faces, those places, those realities.
But you do not show.
Bless you, Veronica, for showing the proper things. For having the proper face, the fair side to get on the spotlight, to show on TV, on the newspaper, on the media. The lion attack, the panic at home. That's what we all show, some more, some less... that's the essence of it all... to manage fear and truth, to hide the useless and show the important. The practical, the trascendent, the meaningfull.
Is there anything else to show?
Is there, Veronica? You are the face of the truth, the one we all turn our backs from, every single day.
I hope I turn into you someday. The side we are all afraid to be, but the side the world needs the most. I'm aware.

Rest in peace.

PD: And yes, she was a church-goer, apart from a crime reporter, an oddity concerning the usual rest of the journalists from all the world regions. Ain't that tell us somethin'. http://www.irishabroad.com/news/irishinamerica/news/guerin.asp