Reviews of Words of Fire
"...a compelling, dispiriting, and much-needed reality check on the state of press freedom around the world....Collings's accounts of these and other cases are gripping." -- Weekly Standard, July 23, 2001
"This groundbreaking account is told with an immediacy that could only have come from a reporter skilled in the techniques of 'guerrilla' journalism." -- Library Journal, June 2001
"Mozambique is a place where government professes support for freedom of the press, but that message...has not reached the journalists. The result is an atmosphere that Anthony Collings calls a 'battleground country' for press freedoms. That's the term he uses in his new book, "Words of Fire: Independent Journalists Who Challenge Dictators, Druglords and Other Enemies of a Free Press," to describe places where press liberties are not as broad as in countries like the U.S., or non-existent as they are in China, but rather fluctuate from year to year or even week to week." -- Syndicated columnist Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune, July 22, 2001. (Column also appeared in Washington Times and Newsday.)
"Tony Collings has performed an invaluable service for brave and determined journalists all over the world with his extraordinarily comprehensive compendium of the threats and dangers they face in doing the kind of accountability reporting we take for granted in the free press of the United States. Those dangers, and many, too many deaths, are all too real; the light that Tony shines on them should spur efforts like those of the Committee to Protect Journalists to help our brave brothers and sisters safely do the jobs to which they have selflessly dedicated themselves." -- Leonard Downie Jr., Executive Editor, The Washington Post
"An absorbing, rich rendition of courageous journalism in places where a free press is not taken for granted. Journalists die every day, at the hands of dictators, drug lords and terrorists. Tony Collings knows their business and tells their stories with a style that keeps the pages turning." -- Ken Bode, Dean of Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University; former moderator of PBS's "Washington Week in Review"
"Words of Fire is a breathtaking story of courageous journalists who dare to dare. It is humbling, terrifying and exhilarating. It is a celebration of the freedom to speak and the durability of the human spirit." -- Prof. Howard Bossen, Asst. Director, School of Journalism, Michigan State University
"It is a marvelous piece of research and a story well told. And it was done by a journalist uniquely qualified for the task; Collings knows what it's like to be held at gunpoint for doing his job." -- Prof. Frank Starr, Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University; former Moscow correspondent of Chicago Tribune