Seen through the lens of filmmaker Brian Oakes, Foley’s close childhood friend, Jim: The James Foley Story takes us from small-town New England to the adrenaline-fuelled front lines of Libya and Syria, where photojournalist James (Jim) Foley pushed the limits of danger to report on the plight of civilians impacted by war.

On Thanksgiving Day 2012, Jim Foley was kidnapped in Syria and went missing for two years. Thrown into a world of false leads and misinformation, the Foley family was threatened with prosecution by the U.S. government if they paid a ransom. In Oakes’s gut-wrenching film, Foley’s family, friends, and fellow journalists tell Jim’s story, while his fellow hostages reveal the details of captivity with chilling immediacy.

Brilliantly constructed with unparalleled access, Jim is a harrowing chronicle of bravery, compassion, and pain at the dawn of a new World War against ISIS.

Tickets can be booked through the Bertha DocHouse website and the screening will take place at the Curzon Bloomsbury cinema.

Directed by: Brian Oakes
Country: United States
Year: 2016
runtime: 120′

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.

The widespread abduction of journalists in Syria began in the middle of 2012, with Theo Padnos one of the first to be kidnapped. Padnos, a writer and freelance journalist whose work has appeared in The New Republic, The London Review of Books and The New York Times magazine, spent two years in the hands of Al-Qaeda. At one point he was held in the same compound as the Islamic State’s foreign hostages.

James Harkin is a freelance journalist writing about and from Syria for Vanity Fair, Harper’s, Newsweek and The Guardian. In his new book Hunting Season, he traces the Islamic State’s campaign of kidnapping twenty-four foreign hostages, which ended with the execution of Jim Foley and others.

James Harkin and Theo Padnos will be joining us to discuss the current dangers to freelancers in Syria and how to avoid them, how to survive captivity and torture, the descent of Syria, and the rise of Islamic State.

This event is off the record, please refrain from filming and reporting the discussion.

This event is off the record, please refrain from filming and reporting the discussion.

The scale of journalist and aid-worker kidnappings in Syria has raised questions about government policies on paying ransoms and the use of media blackouts.

In the US, President Barack Obama has ordered a comprehensive review of US policy governing efforts to free American hostages, but has made clear he is still opposed to the payment of ransoms, in contrast to some of his European counterparts.

There have long been questions within the news industry about whether the use of media blackouts are effective. The head of the Committee to Protect Journalists, Joel Simon, has now said he believes they are “no longer an effective strategy”.

We will be bringing together a panel to debate the current policies towards ransom and blackouts. We will be asking if they need to be reformed, and if so, what they should look like in the future.

Chaired by Richard Sambrook, professor of journalism and director at the Centre for Journalism, Cardiff University. He is a former director of Global News at the BBC where he worked as a journalist for 30 years as a producer, editor and manager. He is the chairman of the International News Safety Institute (INSI).

The panel:

Anthony Loyd is an award-winning correspondent and writer. He is currently roving foreign correspondent for The Times and author of My War Gone By I Miss It So.

Joel Simon (via Skype) is the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). He has written widely on media issues and is author of the recently published The New Censorship: Inside the Global Battle for Media Freedom.

Carl Newns, head of media office and press secretary to the foreign secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).

Diane Foley (via Skype) is the mother of James Foley, a journalist who was killed by ISIS in August 2014.

An adviser from Terra Firma Risk Management.

Foreign reporters began to go missing in Syria in the autumn of 2012. The first disappeared just as the conflict slid from violent unrest into the abyss of outright civil war. Within a year the numbers were in double figures. By the close of 2013 rebel held zones were effectively barren of journalists.

What happened to our missing reporters? Who holds them and what can we do to help secure their release? Roving foreign correspondent for The Times Anthony Loyd will be chairing a panel of specialists with first hand knowledge of the hostage crisis in Syria to examine how best we can aid the vanished.

The panel:

John Wade is the deputy director of the Response Division at Control Risks.

Paul Wood is a correspondent at the BBC who has covered Syria extensively.

Michael Hoare is deputy head of press and digital at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Karen Lajon is senior correspondent for Le Journal du Dimanche and co-chair of the support committee for French Hostages in Syria.

This event is off the record, please refrain from filming and reporting the discussion.

Despite the constant threat, she continues to work tirelessly to investigate armed conflict, drug trafficking, organised crime and issues around women and violence. Currently working for the national newspaper El Tiempo, in 2012 she was one of 10 women awarded the International Women of Courage Award and in October this year she was named as one of the 100 most influential journalists covering armed violence and conflict around the world, by Action on Armed Violence (AOAV).

We are honoured to welcome Jineth Bedoya Lima to the Frontline Club, she will be talking to Ed Vulliamy, a writer for The Guardian and Observer, about her prolific career as a journalist in Colombia, the work she does on conflict-related sexual violence and the ongoing peace process.

By Helena Williams

When Colin Freeman, a Daily Telegraph correspondent, was kidnapped by Somali pirates along with his photographer Jose Cendron, he did not know when he would be free again – if ever.

But during last night’s Frontline Club event, Freeman – who is now the chief foreign correspondent for the Sunday Telegraph – said he had signed up for a life of adventure.

 “In a world with an increased sense of safety, it was a chance to toss a lot of that aside. It gave me a sense of adventure.”

His harrowing experience is retold in his new book Kidnapped: Life as a Somali Pirate Hostage.

In 2008 Freeman was sent to Bossaso, Somalia, to investigate a spate of piracy in the Gulf of Aden in the hope that he’d be able to secure exclusive interviews with pirates.

He was adamant that he was never pressured to put his life at risk to bear witness.

“For anyone who thinks foreign correspondents get put under pressure to go to dangerous places – that has never happened in my experience.”

Convinced that pirates craved media attention, he was disappointed to find that when it was time for his trip to finish, it had not been as fruitful as initially anticipated. It was when he and his photographer were on their way to the airport when their bodyguards, hired for protection, kidnapped them at gunpoint.

“I remember thinking that if I got kidnapped I’d shout and scream, because if you do that in public they [the kidnappers] would lose their nerve.

“But if someone points a gun at you, you’ll do whatever they want. Anyone who passed us on the road would have thought we were changing a tyre.”

Taken into the mountainous region outside Bossaso, they endured six weeks of terrifying uncertainty.

“Luckily Jose had the same attitude as me – we both knew to keep calm, take it easy and have a sense of humour.

“The first week was pretty grim. What kept us going was the friendship we had developing at 100 times the rate it normally happens.”

He describes being kidnapped as living “like a soul in a waiting room, waiting for an afterlife.”

“The best thing to do is to think about things that are comforting, and to keep your mind busy. It’s frightening how quickly your brain empties of things to think about.”

It is only after negotiations with the pirates that he and Jose were freed – and as soon as he was a free man, the Telegraph immediately asked him to file a 5000 word story on his experience. He was happy to oblige.

“It’s part of your duty as a journalist, and also good therapy.

“At the end of the day, as a foreign correspondent you are paid to go out there and come back intact – and not get kidnapped. My sense of professional pride was smarting.”

Indeed, he says despite his ordeal there is not a country – other than Somalia, “for a while” – that he wouldn’t want to cover.

In contrast to the sustained public campaign for his freedom, the kidnap of Canadian freelance Amanda Lindhout and Australian photographer Nigel Brennan received little publicity either in their home countries or around the world.

Held in Somalia for 15 months after they were siezed in August 2008, the pair and their families were reliant on their respective governments to negotiate their freedom.

But after 340 days without any progress, the families hired a private hostage negotiation group. Lindhout and Brennan were freed in November last year, reportedly after a ransom was paid.

With none of the political clout of a big news operation or its insurance back up, freelance journalists are uniquely vulnerable. As Sean Langan has pointed out, there are always people ready to criticise you for being there in the first place, but it is freelance journalists prepared to take risks who get stories that otherwise would go unreported.

The question of whether Lindhout and Brennan were wise to go to Somalia was raised during the time of their captivity. But should the questions of whether it was a good call to go to a danger spot affect how we respond to their plight? Is there more that the industry can do to support freelances who are kidnapped? 

We will be discussing this and more at an discussion on kidnap and the media at the Frontline Club on Thursday 25 March. Click here for more details and to book tickets.

In a sense, just to be there reporting from a war zone is a risk – but if there were no people to take up that challenge, the only news the public would get from theatres of war would be the mundane, filtered propaganda pushed by military communications staff. You don’t need to be in Helmand province to get the MoD’s press releases.

But thankfully, a good many journlists still take those risks and next Thursday at the Frontline Club we celebrate them and also highlight the dangers they put themselves in. Our special event on Kidnap and the Media on Thursday 25th March brings together journalists, security experts and campaigners with direct experience of reporting on journalists’ kidnappings, negotiating on their behalf and even being taken hostage themselves.

Two years ago, Bafta-nominated documentary maker Sean Langan was held captive by Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan for three months while working for Channel 4. Speaking about his ordeal at the club last year, he said:

My first documentary in 1998 for the BBC was about five tourists who were kidnapped in Kashmir. I remember speaking to the families who were traumatised – ten years later to the day, I’m lying in a cell knowing that my family were going through the same trauma

You can also watch Langan’s interview with Channel 4 News’ Jon Snow, immediately after his release, here.

Also appearing at the event are International News Safety Institute director Rodney Pinder and Jonathan Baker, deputy head of newsgathering at BBC News, who was recently appointed head of the BBC College of Journalism and played a key role in securing the release of BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston.

Our moderator is Deborah Haynes, defence editor for The Times and previously the only British newspaper journalist to be permenently based in Baghdad. She has reported extensively on the many kidnappings in Baghdad.

Last week she interviewed 36-year-old IT consultant Peter Moore, who was held for more than two and half years by Shia extremists.

The intractable behin-the-scenes negotiations that took place too secure Moore’ release illustrate just how difficult such cases are. Haynes writes:

Mr Moore said that a British general and a second British official met (fellow detainee) Laith al-Khazali about 20 times while he was a prisoner. He acknowledged, however, that the British Government never had the power to secure his freedom, which was always contingent on the US military releasing prisoners…

Would a media blackout have help Moore’s case? What should media organisations do in future? We’ll be discussing this and much more on Thursday.

Book tickets for this event at this link.

Freelance journalists Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan are finally free and in Kenya after being held hostage in Somalia for over one year. The duo were snatched on the outskirts of Mogadishu in August, 2008. It’s a story we have followed very closely since day one,

"I’m so happy to be free; it feels like a dream," Canadian Amanda Lindhout said. Her Australian colleague Nigel Brennan said he was still "in shock" link

We catalogued the story in the graphic above and on this post – which I’m glad to say I can finally stop editing. And I know those Frontlne bloggers who have worked in Somalia – namely Alex, David and Rob – all kept a close eye on developments and contacted their sources on the ground to see what, if anything, they could find out.

Rob Crilly gives an excellent overview of the unique risks of working in Somalia. These risks multiply exponentially if you work as a freelance. This is an issue we have covered before and no doubt will again.

It’s fantastic to hear Amanda and Nigel have been released and may their story be a lesson to anyone else thinking of heading into Somalia.

But let us not forget that Beverly Geisbrecht, another Canadian freelance journalist, who was kidnapped a year ago this month, remains held somewhere along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border.