The story of one of the most fascinating, courageous, and remarkable journalists began in Ireland in the 1990's when Veronica Guerin became a crime investigative journalist. Her ways of obtaining information put her life in danger, and she would do this by pursuing the Irish Mobsters "often directly from interviewing criminals themselves, to paint a portrait of Ireland’s gritty, drug-fueled gangland in the 1990s." (The real story of Veronica Guerin, by Louise Carroll) Guerin would ultimately be "executed on June 26, 1996 at the hands of the criminals she exposed in her work."
Veronica Guerin became "one of Ireland’s most prominent journalists" when "She wrote eye-opening front-page columns for Ireland’s most popular newspaper, The Sunday Independent." Her work became so popular due to the risk, and amount of information she would take doing her job. She used the threats and intimidation from the criminals as rhetoric for the Irish audience to keep coming back to her stories. In a speech she gave from a movie that aired after her death, Guerin starts by proclaiming "Sadly, it's not unusual to hear that a reporter has been shot or intimidated, a number of reporters have been subjected to death threats and intimidation on a daily basis." She uses the rhetorical strategy pathos to make her audience, Irish citizens, feel for her because she puts her life on the line. Along with the popularity of crime in Ireland, this is what made her work so popular at the time.
Guerin is certainly one of the toughest and extreme journalists in our world's history, and she was even shot in the leg before she gave up pursuing the Irish mobsters. The popularity and risk she would take doing her job is what makes her an Irish legend as she was executed by the same criminals she wrote stories about. She was determined and committed to getting the information for the people of Ireland, and only stopped facing the danger head on when it put an end to her.
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