FRANCE-SYRIA-CONFLICT-MEDIA-DEFECTIONS

Kamal Jamal Beck (C), former director of programming at the official SANA radio and the SANA online news website in Damascus, speaks during a press conference in Paris, on December 28, 2012, as he and two other colleagues from the radio service, Lama Al-Khadra (L) and Baddour Abdel Karim (R), announce their recent defection from official Syrian state media. The three Syrian journalists said they have now joined ranks with the revolution and stated they left Syria fearing for their lives after planning to quit their jobs in protest at ongoing bloodshed and violence perpetrated by the regime of Syrian president Bachar al-Assad. More than 45,000 people have been killed in Syria since the outbreak in March 2011 of an anti-regime revolt that became a bloody insurgency after a brutal crackdown on dissent, a watchdog said on December 26. AFP PHOTO / PIERRE VERDY (Photo credit should read PIERRE VERDY/AFP via Getty Images)