“Don’t Shoot the Journalist: Migrating to Stay Alive,” launches on World Press Freedom Day

Editor Peter Laufer’s “Don’t Shoot the Journalist: Migrating to Stay Alive,” launched officially at the Bozar Center in the heart of Europe’s capital, Brussels, Belgium, on May 7th. The volume assembles conversations, anecdotes, reflections, detailed experiential reports and poems from an international collection of reporters, academics and scholars who have experienced first-hand the threats and dangers that come with the job.

With A.I. the theme of this year’s conference, reporters, politicians and attendees alike were in unison that the risks that journalists take every day have only diversified in their nature and gravity in 2025.

A “job” that has become increasingly more susceptible to attacks ranging from daily hate mail to fatal threats. In a world that has never been as connected, discourse has become more divisive than ever and the digital, deadly. Journalism in today’s world is for many, synonymous with peril and persecution, transcending the professional to the personal.

Held in tandem with UNESCO’s annual World Press Freedom Day, Laufer and a cohort of student reporters, faculty and Research Fellows from the University of Oregon were tasked with the distribution of the book throughout the Bozar Center to spread awareness of the book launch and University of Oregon-UNESO’s Crossings Institute for Conflict Sensitive Reporting and Intercultural Dialogue.

Loaded with 100 books, the group made haste as they discussed their work with fellow reporters and champions of press freedoms. Notable members included BBC’s World Service Director Fiona Crack, Minister of Brussels and Media of Flanders Cieltje Van Achter, Nigerian social media influencer Tobi Ayeni “Miss Techy,” and Director Thibaut Bruttin from Reporters without Borders.

Meanwhile, the cohort also had the opportunity to grow their youth network when interviewed by the Children Reporters team, a rare opportunity to bridge the gap amongst future generations of reporters.

After giving away all their books in a matter of hours, the cohort sealed their time in the Belgian capital with a final interview at the European Commission with Deputy Chief Spokesperson Stefan de Keersmaecker.

A political optimist in the midst of geopolitical uncertainties, de Keersmaecker left the student reporters with these last words of support and advice, “I’m impressed by the work that you do, by the blood, sweat and tear that you often have to put in the work and research and ultimately the search for the facts and truth,” de Keersmaecker said, “I look forward to seeing you in the press room.”

Peter Laufer’s, “Don’t Shoot the Journalists: Migrating to Stay Alive,” is available on all online ordering websites.