The vulnerability of journalists to kidnappings was starkly illustrated by the killing of James Foley and Steven Sotloff by Islamic militants in 2014. Their murder underscored the risks taken by journalists and news organisations trying to cover developments in dangerous regions of the world and has forced news enterprises to more clearly prepare for and confront issues of safety.

We will be discussing how news organisations prepare for and respond to the risk of kidnap, and how insurers, victim recovery firms, journalists’ families, and governments influence the actions of news enterprises – and why freelancers are particularly at risk.

This event will be chaired by Richard Sambrook, chairman of INSI, senior research fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and author of Reporting Dangerously: Journalist Killings, Intimidation and Security.

The panel:

Nicolas Hénin is a French freelance journalist who has reported on conflicts in Iraq, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen. In June 2013 he was kidnapped by Daesh militants in the Syrian city of Raqqa. He was held captive for eleven months until his release in April 2014, and was held alongside other Western hostages including James Foley, Steven Sotloff, Alan Henning and David Haines – all of whom were killed by the extremist group. He is the author of Jihad Academy: The Rise of Islamic State, published in 2015.

Colin Pereira is Director of HP Risk Management and Head of High Risk Security for ITN. He started out as an analyst at the BBC and left a decade later as Deputy Head of the Security team. He has managed and developed risk management structures and training programmes for a number of organisations and manages journalists and filmmakers working on the frontline on a daily basis.

Hannah Storm is director of INSI and author of The Kidnapping of Journalists: Reporting from High-Risk Conflict Zones and No Woman’s Land: On the Frontlines with Female Reporters.

James Harkin writes for Vanity Fair, Harper’s Magazine and Newsweek and is the author of Hunting Season, about the rise of Islamic State and its campaign of kidnapping.

All attendees will receive a free copy of The Kidnapping of Journalists: Reporting from High-Risk Conflict Zones.

If you have done a first aid course before or a hostile environment course, then this is the one-day programme to refresh those skills. This practical workshop will allow you to update your core skills to save someone’s life in the field.

We’ll cover basic life support – breathing and bleeding and other useful tips – as well as how to do this in a hostile environment. Our practical simulations will provide you with a good reminder of what to do and refresh those forgotten skills.

If you have any queries about course content then please contact Caroline Neil.

Timings for the day:
09:00 AM Arrive
09:30 AM Course starts
12:30 – 1:30 PM Lunch
4:30 PM Course ends

This is a pilot course organised by the Frontline Club and the International News Safety Institute (INSI). You must have completed a first aid or a hostile environment course.

By Helena Williams

A documentary on journalist casualties during the Iraq war came under fire last night as members of the audience questioned the director’s stance on the US military.

Greek journalist Nikos Megrelis’ 2011 film, ‘Shooting vs. Shooting’, centres around the killing of Western journalists by American soldiers in Iraq and suggests that US forces often deliberately targeted the press.

It investigates the death of two cameramen, Jose Couso and Taras Protsyuk during the attack on the Hotel Palestine on 8 April 2003, the targeting of Al Jazeera which led to the death of correspondent Tareq Ayyub, the killing of ITN journalist Terry Lloyd and the execution of Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni by Al Quaeda.

But Megrelis’ controversial stance touched a nerve as some members of the audience found the film – which has recently won a number of awards – “anti-American”. When asked by a member of the audience in a Q&A session following the screening whether he thought the documentary was biased, he said:

“It is not my conclusion – it is fact. Facts drive us to make these conclusions.

“I don’t want to say they [the US military] committed crimes. I’m not judging them. The courts should judge them, but they were not judged.

“We have to change the culture of impunity – there is a lack of investigation. This doesn’t only concern journalists,” he added.

The documentary centres around interviews with colleagues and family members of the victims, along with Aidan White, former General Secretary of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).

In his interview, White said:

“What goes on in war is deeply unpleasant. People violate other people’s rights. People act in very cruel and inhumane ways.

“The last thing that military leaders want is to have independent observers of those sorts of violations.”

But some audience members found that Megrelis had failed to create a balanced film.

“The film was not made for TV – it was made [as a] theatrical [documentary],” Megrelis said, adding that he had chosen dramatic music to accompany his graphic archive footage and interviews for this purpose.

But the aim of the documentary, he said, was to highlight the dangerous conditions journalists faced – and still face – while trying to cover conflict zones, and the impunity that often accompanies journalist deaths.

“There should be a strategy so that journalists will be protected in a conflict zone. The important thing is they stay alive so that they can tell the truth,” he said.

Iraq remains one of the deadliest countries in the world for journalists. The International News Safety Institute (INSI) has recorded that 275 journalists have died in Iraq from 2003 to the present day.

In recent months, some of the best-known correspondents in British and American media have weighed in on this issue both in Paddington and more recently at our second Frontline Club event held in New York.

For John Burns who presided over the New York Times Bureau in Baghdad and lived and worked through the dangerous times, the view of Robert Fisk that what he and others practiced was “hotel journalism” is “nonsense.”

But he has to concede that few news organisations could afford the phalanx of armed guards around its fortified bureau that enabled the New York Times and its reporters to make its daily but limited runs through the “red zone”. He feared and still fears that the New York Times will “run out of luck” and sustain casualties that would make it impossible to continue its presence in Baghdad. Burns made his comments at the Frontline Club in mid-September.

Burns claimed that Iraq is the most “comprehensively covered war in history.” But sitting in the audience the night that Burns spoke was John Laurence whose reporting in Vietnam was for many of us the most memorable of that war. To this day, I can still recall some of his individual reports about “Charlie Company.”

I asked Laurence what he thought about Burns’s claim. And after further reflection, he emailed this to me: “How do you cover a war well without witnessing it? Burns explained that journalists in Baghdad allow themselves no more than a quarter of an hour in any one place. How well, I wonder, can you cover a war when all the time you have in the streets or in someone’s home or office before you pack up and move on, protected by professional guards, is 15 minutes?” He said that one could argue that Vietnam, without the danger of being kidnapped and beheaded, was better covered.

What no one disputes is the terrible price paid by Iraqi journalists who’ve been killed while working for Western news organisations or for their own fledgling TV stations and news agencies. In what INSI president Chris Cramer has called “the most dangerous war in the history of journalism,” more than 235 journalists and media workers have now lost their lives in Iraq most of them Iraqi and most of them murdered because of their work.

INSI, unlike other organizations who work alongside the media, have the sense and the sensitivity to include all those who work for the media and alongside us. They draw no artificial distinction between reporter and producer, photographer or fixer, editor or driver. We are all in pursuit of the truth.

I’m sure most of us have seen the results of the recent Global Safety Inquiry sponsored by INSI and chaired by the BBC’s Richard Sambrook. Once again it confirmed what we all feared – the last decade has been a disgusting catalogue of death, injury and intimidation for our profession.
This brings me to my point. Why are so many organizations apparently still in denial when it comes to the obvious fact that the media profession, its professionals, freelances and those who work with us are in such terrible danger? And the situation is getting worse by the day.

Our jobs have always been dangerous and most of us regard that as the price of doing business. But the attrition rate in many parts of the globe is now beyond shocking and has been all-consuming for those news managers whose job it is to assign staff and freelances to war zones or dangerous locations.

Most mature and intelligent news organizations place safety ahead of any other consideration and set aside a large proportion of their annual operating budgets in an attempt to keep their people out of harm’s way. Cash is spent on safety training – for many of us this has become mandatory before anyone is deployed – and also much is spent on safety equipment, vehicles and security personnel. Very few of us in Iraq for example operate without a veritable army of security. We don’t like it but we have no choice. Actually, we do. Without the security we would have to pull out. We know enough about how dangerous it has become without constant security to know that it would be totally insane to operate without adequate protection. Those organizations and individuals who try are either irresponsible or just plain stupid. They are risking the lives of those who work for them.

The industry leaders when it comes to safety tend, of course, to be the BBC and the agencies like Reuters and AP and broadcasters like CNN and other US networks. And, as we know, even these measures do not keep them from suffering casualties. Many of our print colleagues, either for lack of funds or misplaced bravado, are less well equipped and continue to run a serious risk that their reporters and photographers face terrible consequences. It is a complete absurdity to think that a single foreign reporter or photographer can move around in Iraq without protection. Every member of the media is at real risk in Iraq at present including, as the ABC deaths prove, local staffers. The same is true in Afghanistan, Somalia, and other flashpoints around the world. We are all equally at risk.

Of course there are some siren voices out there that suggest that if we are so at risk then we cannot possibly do the jobs we need to do. That a fortress existence in Iraq or Afghanistan or armed guards in Somalia somehow negates our ability to provide fair and impartial coverage for our readers or viewers. But this is not the case. It has to be possible for big and small organizations alike, staffers and freelancers, to find affordable security to continue to do their jobs. Maybe we should consider some kind of cooperative so that those with fewer resources can afford adequate security and safety back-up.

Passionate journalists will always find a way to provide compelling reportage. But we gain nothing from a naïve belief that the world is like it used to be. I am afraid that the halcyon days of reporters and photographers setting off on assignment on a wing and a prayer are behind us. It is a dangerous world that we choose to cover these days and the profession needs to work harder than ever to ensure that we get there and back safely. 

Apart from the FT,  few British newspapers gave the findings the attention they deserved.
The newspaper coverage didn’t say why this INSI enquiry is different from other studies of deaths of journalists such as the recentl report by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

The INSI enquiry includes the deaths of all media personnel including interpreters and drivers. The CPJ doesn’t record their deaths. Nor will you find their names listed on the Freedom Forum’s glittering Journalists’ Memorial in Washington.

As a not-for-profit organization, INSI provides free and low-cost safety training for local journalists. Killing the Messenger documents that three out of every four journalists killed around the world are murdered in their home countries pursuing stories that their governments or organised crime don’t want published.

But INSI’s work can’t continue unless it gets more financial support from the news industry. It is indefensible how few newspapers have been willing to pay 1000 Euros ($1,331 or £678) to become members and support training and improved safety practices for the local journalists and stringers on whom they rely.

Only the Guardian, FT and Boston Globe have become members. Not a single Murdoch newspaper has put any money into the fund. Nor have the wealthy German papers. In the U.S. there have been no contributions from newspapers such as the Washington Post and USA Today.

I’ve heard it said at major international conferences dominated by the newspapers (IPI and WAN conferences) that safety is really an issue for the more exposed television news crews than it is for print reporters.

Killing the Messenger sets the record straight: nearly the same number of print journalists and broadcast journalists have lost their lives over the 10 years that INSI compiled its figures.
There are now 1000 members of the Frontline Club. Many of you work for major newspapers and broadcasters. The next time you see your Editor (or Executive Producer) ask why your own paper or network isn’t a member of INSI.

Let me know what they tell you and we’ll publish their explanations next month.

INSI (The International News Safety Institute) counted 146 journalists and support staff – drivers, translators, fixers and others – who died doing their jobs in 28 countries. One horrific accident, the crash of a plane in Iran taking news teams on a military assignment, claimed 48 lives. But more than 70 of the dead were murdered apparently because of their work.

And the pattern is repeating this year with 31 casualties thus far. As always, the vast majority were local journalists working in their own countries. The circumstances surrounding the killings often were not clear. Many countries failed to hold proper investigations.

But as far as we can tell from reports, those responsible for the murders included criminals – drug lords stand out – corrupt businessmen and politicians. A year ago, INSI launched a global inquiry into the reasons for the escalating death toll and asked me to chair it.
The remit: “To prepare a report on the legal, professional and practical issues related to covering the protection of journalists in dangerous situations. “The report will consider proposals for reinforcing existing levels of protection including the possible need for a new international convention dealing specifically with the safety and protection of journalists including, if required, an emblem to achieve a secure and safe environment for journalists and those who work with them.”

Our conclusions should be published this autumn.Alongside interviews with news media staff experiencing violence, we have researched historical records of journalist deaths going back 15 years.

We held fact-finding sessions in Kuala Lumpur and Doha for journalists from Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East and Gulf. London followed with a session for international journalists. We gathered journalists from Latin America in New York and in Europe interviewed journalists from Russia, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. Our final session is due to be held in Africa in the next few months.

We have also had a seminar with a group of international legal experts on the issue of impunity and the legal protections – or lack of them – for journalists. But the bulk of our report – supporting our argument for action – will come from drilling down into the historical data. We are working with Cardiff University on just how we organise the research into this mountain of evidence collected over many years by supporting organisations such as the International Federation of Journalists, (IFJ) Committee to Protect Journalists, (CPJ) International Press Institute (IPI) and others.

Among the issues so far:Neutrality – The status of detached, impartial observer which so often protected journalists in the midst of conflict has largely gone. In an increasingly polarized world reporters are being caught in a crossfire between opposing interests who believe you’re either “with us or against us.” Many US and Israeli troops believe Iraqi and Palestinian journalists are in league with the insurgents. The gunmen in Iraq see working journalists, local and foreign, as exemplars of the occupation. Impunity – This clearly is a prime factor behind the killing of journalists, and it encourages more of the same.

Murder accounts for more than 70 per cent of journalist deaths around the world and around 90 per cent of the killers get away with it. They beat and torture and kill journalists under a cloak of impunity provided by corrupt political, legal and economic systems. Military-Media – Lack of mutual understanding and effective communication causes casualties in major wars. Journalists and armed forces have made fatal assumptions, unfounded in fact or even practical expectation.

There is widespread ignorance in militaries of what journalists do and why they might be in the way. There is also much ignorance amongst journalists about military capabilities (or lack of them) and imperatives. Safety knowledge – The lack of it – and commitment to safe practice by employers and journalists themselves, is a critical factor. Many journalists have no idea of how to look after themselves effectively amid conflict, malign forces, disorder and natural disaster.

They must shoulder some of the blame for casualties through their own foolhardiness, lack of safety and health precautions, ignorance of the background of a situation, reckless competitive pursuit of fame and glory, ignoring military/security force orders and guidance, refusing to wear safety gear, assuming – despite all the evidence – they are somehow invincible. And many employers take incredible risks with their reporters, whether sending them unprotected into war or the criminal underworld without proper training or equipment or guidance.So what might be done? One idea is a media murder index which could be built into country profiles that would be used as a basis for determining international aid.

Encouragingly, Paul Wolfowitz, the new World Bank president, seems to be quietly breaking precedent by ordering the World Bank to protest when press freedoms are under attack.The Bank rebuked the government of Kenya for a violent raid – admitted to have been planned by government officials – earlier this year on KTN Television and the printing offices of the Standard newspaper and froze $250 million in loans. International conventions should be scrutinised to see if greater protection can be provided for journalists – perhaps a new social contract in return for a commitment to professional editorial standards.Greater media-military understanding is seen as essential, though there is no certainty on how best to achieve this, especially when an army perceives the media or a particular news organisation as hostile. Again, we have been encouraged by the British Ministry of Defence’s response to an INSI initiative.

For the first time it has written provisions for journalist safety into its “Green Book” governing military-media relations in time of war. These include a pledge that British forces will never target journalists. Prompt and open inquiries where and whenever journalists are killed by military forces are a prerequisite.Employers must provide better safety training and support both for reporters and crews going into war and those covering dangerous stories at home. Freelances have to be included.

And above all, journalists themselves can help by being true to high quality, independent reporting. During a lively open panel discussion in New York, Ethan Bronner, deputy Foreign Editor of the New York Times, declared journalists had to make clear to societies that they mattered by raising the level of their work. “We must build up what we do so it is unassailable, so that journalism is seen at its highest,” he said.

Henning Gloystein