On Tuesday 1st November, in an event organised in partnership with the London Press Club and Index on Censorship, six journalists met at the Frontline Club to redefine Foreign Correspondence.

“Where once we were seen as neutral observers, now we are targets” said Caroline Lees, author of Index’s recent article ‘Under The Wires’. Backed up by a deterioration in journalistic safety and evidence supplied by Assad defectors, it is clear that journalists are now firmly in the military’s crosshairs.

Freelance photojournalist Paul Conroy attributed this to the rise of the use of truth “as a weapon of war”. Kim Sengupta, Defence Correspondent at The Independent noted that the use of kidnapping and public beheading by rebel groups has led to “a huge tranche of Northern Syria not being covered”.

However, this tactic of limiting press freedom through violence is not limited to terrorist organisations.

Conroy is in a court case against the Assad regime after documents smuggled out of Syria proved that he and his colleague Marie Colvin were a victim of an assassination operation. These documents state that “international journalists were to be treated the same as combatants”.

The rise of untrained freelance journalists in the field worsens the problem. Freelancer Samira Shackle mentioned that she had come across numerous “horror stories” of young journalists arriving in hostile zones without even basic precautions. She cited the dangers of young reporters travelling without insurance or basic cyber security.

The problem is exacerbated by the increased role of ‘fixers’. As local employees who offer on the ground support to the international press, these freelancers run many of the same risks as Western journalists but with little of the support. They also must cope with increased hostilities and accusations of being a spy or traitor.

They are also often left out in the cold when it comes to kidnap or imprisonment.

Caroline Lees mentioned the case of Jovo Martinović, the Montenegrin investigative journalist arrested whilst researching a gun running story. Despite the dubious charges, the French station he was working for has done little to help him.

Dr Haider Al Safi formerly of The Independent, said that in many cases, these employees were being exploited: “They are overworked, not getting paid well and also not introduced to their rights”.

There was consensus on how the journalistic world could respond. This included major organisations taking more care in training all it’s employees. Some attempts have been made towards this end.

However, Lees mentioned sources from news organisations who said they didn’t support fixers because it was “too complicated, too expensive and they don’t want to accept liability”. With statements like this it is clear a sea change across journalism is a long way off.

On Tuesday 12 April, the Frontline Club played host to an intimate screening of Syria’s Rebellious Women, followed by a lively discussion between director Zaina Erhaim and Index on Censorship magazine editor Rachael Jolley.

“From my own experience, I tried to research Syrian women from history and I could not find anything,” said Erhaim, who is originally from Idlib in northern Syria. “So when the revolution started I felt we had to capture the work that these women were doing. Because in the future the men will be writing the history and those heroines will be forgotten.”

Adding: “I’m Syrian myself and so I felt it was my duty to do.”

Filmmaker @ZainaErhaim talking about Syria’s incredible ‘Rebellious Women’ at the Frontline Club #IndexAwards2016 pic.twitter.com/1I0EpyRCZh

— Fred Searle (@fsearle91) April 12, 2016

Jolley began the discussion by asking about the obstacles facing women operating as journalists in Syria.

“It’s very difficult,” said Erhaim, who was one of two or three women from her town to study journalism. “It’s connected to open-mindedness, mixing with men and lots of travel which is not accepted in our communities… Now you can imagine that these communities are armed. The masculine powers are now holding arms, so what they do to suppress women is horrible.”

When pushed about feeling any sense of threat or danger, Erhaim conceded her fears about returning to her homeland.

“It is dangerous, anyone who is living inside Syria is expecting to be killed at any moment. I don’t know any who hasn’t at least told their friends about their will. Whenever we gather, the first thing we speak about is did you change your will – are you going to give me your laptop?”

Saw ferociously gifted & brave @ZainaErhaim talk about Syria @frontlineclub last night. Rooting for her at @IndexCensorship awards tonight

— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) April 13, 2016

Erhaim also discussed the plight of young children, for whom the ongoing violence has become normalised. “What freaks me out is how they become peaceful with what’s going on. I was in a park that has now become a cemetery, but it still had a slide and a swing. So kids were still going to play among the tombs and graves.”

“Kids were still going to play among the tombs and graves.”

“I believe we’ll have a crazy generation who will need lots of psychological support,” Erhaim added.

Going on to express her disillusionment at the treatment of Syrian refugees in Europe, Erhaim said: “Outside Syria we’re being treated like potential terrorists. We’re becoming frightening creatures… The foreign jihadis who are mainly from the EU are coming to our lands to occupy them – and we’re the ones treated as potential terrorists.”

The depths of the conflict were noted when Erhaim admitted that she had been unable to maintain contact with loyalist family members. “I have two persons from my family that I haven’t spoken to in six years, even when I went back to the regime area in 2011 I hid myself, fearing that they would inform about me and have me arrested.”

While Syria’s Rebellious Women painted a sombre picture, there was some cause for optimism. Erhaim revealed how her efforts teaching Syrians to become citizen journalists had helped women in providing for their families.

“The beautiful thing about it is now they’re gaining money out of it and supporting their families. For the five women who are constantly publishing on our Damascus Bureau website, all of them are supporting their own families. It’s beautiful.”

Watch the trailer for the film here.

On Wednesday 22 October, the autumn issue of Index on Censorship magazine launched at the Frontline Club. The magazine’s editor, Rachael Jolley, introduced the issue and handed over to author and columnist, David Aaronovitch, who chaired the accompanying debate on the future of journalism.

Aaronovitch initiated the discussion by asking each panellist to speak individually on the future of journalism before inviting the audience to partake.

Rachael Jolly (right) gives an introduction and speaks briefly on the Index on Censorship magazine launch.

Richard Sambrook, professor and director of the Centre for Journalism at Cardiff University and former Director of BBC World Service, suggested that we will be better informed “if we want to be”. The panel and the audience returned repeated to this theme that we now have access to more information than ever before, but also have to be more discerning about the source of that news.

In our technology-led society, it is becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate journalists from citizen reporters. And Raymond Joseph, former editor of the South African Sunday Times, who joined the panel via Skype from South Africa, said that we must ask numerous questions before trusting a source: “How do you know? Who do you know? What do you know?”

“Today you need to be platform agnostic,” Joseph continued. “You need to separate news from the noise.”

While everyone agreed that Twitter was a powerful journalistic tool that journalists couldn’t afford not to use, Sambrook also took to task how we define journalism. He debated whether “any expression in the public space is journalism”, and concluded that “just because you heard something doesn’t make it journalism . . . it is raw information”. It is what you do with it that matters.

From left: David Aaronovitch, Amie Ferris-Rotman, Rachael Briggs and Richard Sambrook.

Rachel Briggs, Director of Hostage UK, said that the public is also beginning to lose trust in the media and this is somewhat due to people being “fed up with the way . . . the media is so mediated”.

Media sources are also unwilling to invest in hiring local reporters in other countries. “Foreign reporting still relies unfortunately on the . . . model of the white saviour, often male,” said Amie Ferris-Rotman, former correspondent for Reuters in Afghanistan and Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University. But she also revealed the startling statistic that the “British media has 40% less international coverage than it did 30 years ago.”

Aaronovitch said that “[news] organisations become almost completely disconnected from abroad” as they do not know or understand information to the same extent as local journalists.

A panel of young and future journalists joined the experts with fresh ideas. Priyanka Mogul, Journalism and Human Rights student at Kingston University, said that with the huge amount of information available, at least it is “becoming impossible to be someone who doesn’t know what is going on”.

Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of Index on Censorship, commented on the youth panel:

The @Index_Magazine launch youth panel on #futurejournalism has been fabulous – insightful, optimistic and challenging

— Jodie Ginsberg (@jodieginsberg) October 22, 2014

You can watch the event and listen again here: