When the tenth anniversary of my friend and colleague Anja Niedringhaus' death loomed last April, I learned that her family was organising a memorial event in her home town of Höxter. Although I couldn't make it there on the day, they invited me and others who knew Anja to send them a video message. I'm not sure mine was appreciated.

You see, apart from talking about my fond memories of Anja and the enduring pain of her killing - at the hands of a rogue Afghan police officer while she was covering elections in the country for my then-employer AP - I also spoke about her physical and mental state in the years leading up to it. Because while Anja died from a rifle shot, prompting the usual debate about the risk journalists face when working in war zones, nobody ever spoke about the severe toll that her job had been taking on her health for years and which, I have no doubt, would have led to severe illness or premature death eventually unless she had quit.

You think I'm exaggerating? During my 18 years working for a news agency I rarely came across reporters who were what you might call "in full health." There were those who, after working with little or no sleep for days on end, collapsed in the bureau. Others who had heart problems in their early fifties. Chronic exhaustion, high blood pressure, alcoholism were common. I know of suicide attempts and suicides. Several colleagues died of cancer that - if they had gone for check-ups sooner - might have been detected and cured.

Without going into personal details I can say with certainty that Anja suffered from stress-related illnesses. She talked regularly about leaving her job as a photographer to become a lecturer in journalism. But time and again she would go out into the field for "one more month" and end up doing six in a place filled with death and misery, because she felt it was her duty to cover that. Her addiction to nicotine was matched by her need for adrenalin and, perhaps more importantly, the sense of purpose that journalism provides, even as it's slowly killing you.

I don't know if her superiors ever told her to slow down and take a break. I'm guessing not. Why keep your best horse in the stable. Better to let it racing until it drops than have a costly expense whiling its days away in the stable. I do know that the only people in journalism with shiny skin and shiny hair seem to be the managers, who make those decisions and don't have to worry about being "let go" suddenly after decades of service.

Am I being cynical? Maybe. We make our own choices and it was certainly Anja's decision to live the life she did. Others, like me, jumped ship after the twitch in their eye, the grinding of teeth or a sense of perpetual anger from being 'always on' (or maybe all of those at once) prompted warnings words from their doctor.

Given the news media's slow death spiral, it's hard to see how the situation can improve. But a first step would certainly be to talk about what's going on, rather than pretend that people's health is irrelevant or just the price you pay for doing what should be the best job in the world. I've seen far too many good friends and colleagues waste away. Not all of them got memorials, like Anja. All of them deserved better.