Press cards are an essential part of a professional journalist’s kit. They provide proof of a journalist’s legitimacy and credibility, enabling access to essential news stories and events. They also play a key safety role. Carrying a press card can prevent detention or arrest and alleviate suspicion over a journalist’s presence at an event, location or situation. They can make it safer to negotiate difficult checkpoints and can help protect a journalist’s equipment from confiscation. Without a press card, journalists can be exposed to greater risk, especially in critical situations.

But for many freelance journalists, press cards are difficult to obtain.

Freelancers who are not a member of a national union, who work internationally and who are not based in the country of their nationality can often struggle to obtain press cards, especially those who work for multiple clients. The Frontline Club Press Card will ensure that these freelance journalists are better able to secure professional accreditation.

The cards are currently available to registrants of the Frontline Freelance Register (FFR), a representative body for freelance journalists created and run by freelancers. 

All FFR registrants are professional and active journalists who abide by a recognised industry code of conduct. By doing so, they support an increasingly important but vulnerable international reporting community.

Freelancers who are not members of FFR can register their interest at:  presscards@www.beta.frontlineclub.com

In FFR’s soon to be published survey, The State of Freelancing in 2019, 60% of respondents from 70 countries confirmed that press cards are vital to their safety while working. The many comments related to press cards and safety from respondents include:

• “Security forces in Mexico repeatedly ask for press cards and it helps our safety if we have them, since they are one of the main aggressors against journalists.”
• “I am a journalist who has been working in Syria for over a year. Because of the existence of large groups with different ideologies there must be a card explaining to all of them that I am a journalist and neutral”
• “Authorities in the parts of the world where I work generally dislike journalists, but they at least understand the nature of our work. A press card is extremely necessary.”“I work in a country in which it is illegal to operate as a journalist without press accreditation and it is often necessary to show one’s press card. Journalists who are denied a press card are liable to be arrested”
• “Tense checkpoints and authorities have demanded press cards before and backed off when they were provided.”
• “A press card is helpful, particularly in tense protest/riot situations but it’s hard (and sometimes expensive) to have an up to date accreditation. No outlet I work for is willing to issue one to a freelancer.”
• “Without a press card it would be impossible to obtain the necessary permissions to work safely in a hostile environment like Iraq or Syria. More than that, it makes foreign reporters recognizable by security forces.”
• “Police, authorities, government officials and non-state actors always want to see some official documentation to identify me when I’m photographing events/people and showing them a press card lends legitimacy to why I am at a certain place at a certain time.”

Frontline Club Press Cards will only be issued to verified professional journalists. They are not part of the UK Press Authority scheme.

For further information please visit the Freelancer Hub at the Global Media Freedom Conference, Printworks, London SE16 7PJ on 10th and 11th July or contact Vaughan Smith, Founder, CEO & Trust Executive Director: vaughan.smith@www.beta.frontlineclub.com.

Endorsements

On the eve of the UK’s first Global Conference for Media Freedom in London, this event will examine the new and current threats facing journalists – both online and offline – and explore potential solutions for protecting reporters’ lives and the freedom of information. It features journalist Lindsey Hilsum, author of In Extremis: The Life and Death of the War Correspondent Marie Colvin; journalist and author Peter Greste, who spent 400 days behind bars in Egypt on terrorism charges and Courtney Radsch, Advocacy Director for Committee to Protect Journalists.

The panel will also discuss the idea behind The Last Column, a new book and multimedia project supported by CPJ which collects the last stories published by 24 journalists who have been killed since 1992 as a way to remember those who gave heir lives to uncover the truth.

Moderator:

Jon Williams is Managing Director, RTÉ News & Current Affairs. He was previously Managing Editor, International News, at ABC News in New York where he shaped the organisation’s international news coverage and strategy and led ABC’s reporting of the war in Ukraine, the European refugee crisis, and the coverage of the ISIS terrorist attacks in Europe. Jon was the BBC’s UK News Editor during the 2005 general election and 7/7 terror attacks on the London transport network, coverage of which was recognised with a BAFTA award. He was also Deputy Editor of the BBC’s Six O’Clock News and BBC’s World News Editor, managing a staff of 200 people in 30 different countries. Before leaving the BBC, Jon oversaw the reporting of the civil war in Syria, which earned him a second Emmy, and was honoured with the 2013 International Prize by the Royal Television Society.

Speakers:

Lindsey Hilsum is Channel 4 News International Editor, and has covered many of the conflicts of recent years including in Syria, Ukraine and the Arab Spring. She was in Baghdad for the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, and in Belgrade for the 1999 NATO bombing. In 1994, she was the only English-speaking correspondent in Rwanda when the genocide began. She has won awards from the Royal Television Society and BAFTA amongst others, and received the 2017 Patron’s Medal from the Royal Geographical Society. She has just published a biography: “In Extremis – the Life of War Correspondent Marie Colvin”.

Peter Greste is an Award winning foreign correspondent and UNESCO Chair of Journalism and Communications, University of Queensland. He began his career as a foreign correspondent, covering the war in Yugoslavia and South Africa’s first democratic election before being appointed as the BBC’s Afghanistan correspondent in 1995. In 2013, he made headlines himself when he was arrested in Egypt on charges of terrorism and threatening national security. He spent 400 days behind bars and has since become a devoted advocate for press freedom. His book, The First Casualty, is part memoir, part history about the threats to modern journalism, and the fraught quest – and desperate need – for truth in the age of terrorism.

Courtney C. Radsch is advocacy director at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). She serves as chief spokesperson on global press freedom issues for the organization and oversees CPJ’s engagement with the United Nations, the Internet Governance Forum, and other multilateral institutions as well as CPJ’s campaigns on behalf of journalists killed and imprisoned for their work. As a veteran journalist, researcher, and free expression advocate, she frequently writes and speaks about the intersection of media, technology, and human rights. Her book Cyberactivism and Citizen Journalism in Egypt: Digital Dissidence and Political Change was published in 2016. Prior to joining CPJ, Radsch worked for UNESCO and edited the flagship publication World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development, and managed the Global Freedom of Expression Campaign at Freedom House. She has worked as a journalist in the United States and Middle East with Al-Arabiya, the Daily Star, and The New York Times.

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.

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.

Heading to Sheffield Doc/Fest this year? Not only does the programme contain a fantastic selection of documentaries, but everyone with a full festival pass also has access to the diverse and inspiring conference programme. We have produced a conference session, Dangerous Storytelling: Documentary Filmmaking and the Safety of Subjects, which will place at the ITV Town Hall Council Chamber at 10:15 AM on Tuesday 9 June.

The relationship between filmmaker and subject is a topic hotly debated by film directors, academics, and journalists. Methods such as undercover filming, encrypted communication and Skype allow filmmakers to reach individuals who may otherwise be reluctant to speak or difficult to meet in person. However, unprecedented access to a compelling story can come with a risk to the individuals at the centre of the film. How can documentary makers without a journalism background practice safe investigative work? When the telling of a story has potential consequences, how can a filmmaker ensure the protection of their subjects? We will be joined by Orlando von Einsiedel, Kim Longinotto, Julianna Ruhfus, and Beadie Finzi to discuss circumstances in which the presence of a camera is risky business.

The panelists:

Beadie Finzi (Chair)
Beadie Finzi is one of the founding directors of BRITDOC, a non profit film foundation supported by Channel 4 Television, Ford Foundation and Bertha Foundation as well as a number of US and European foundations. Having worked in documentary for the past 20 years, Beadie is in heaven in her role at BRITDOC – whose mission is to befriend independent filmmakers, fund great films (120 to date), broker new partnerships, build new business models, share knowledge and develop audiences globally.

Kim Longinotto
Kim Longinotto is an award-winning and critically acclaimed documentary filmmaker. Best known for her unobtrusive observational style and focus on female subjects crossing a multitude of international boundaries, Kim was the subject of a two-week career retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2009 and was awarded the Inspiration Award by Sheffield Doc/Fest in 2010. She has directed 20 documentaries, a selection of which include Eat the Kimono (1989), Rock Wives (1996) Divorce Iranian Style (1998) and Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go (2007). Rough Aunties (2008) won the World Cinema Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009. Her most recent films Pink Saris (2010) and Salma (2013) are set in India.

Orlando Von Einsiedel
2014 saw the completion of Orlando von Einsiedel’s debut feature length documentary, VIRUNGA, focusing on the conservation work of rangers within Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Winning 40 international awards, it showcases Orlando’s ability for drawing out intimate and personal stories in challenging locations. Orlando previously directed award-winning films spanning Africa, Asia, the Americas, and the Arctic, covering a diverse range of stories. He has been nominated for an Academy Award, a BAFTA, a Directors’ Guild of America Award, and an Independent Film Spirit Award.

Juliana Ruhfus
Juliana Ruhfus is the senior reporter for Al Jazeera’s ‘People & Power’ investigative and current affairs strand where she has worked since 2006, when her film on Liberian ex-combatants launched the channel’s programming content. Nearly 30 films later she has gone undercover in Turkmenistan and in Cambodian orphanages, produced the five part ‘Corporations on Trial’ series, and her two-part investigation into the trafficking of Nigerian women into the Italian sex-trade is one of the most-watched People & Power shows in its history. In 2010, she was awarded the Ochberg Fellowship, and in 2011 she received a scholarship for Harvard’s Global Trauma Program. She is currently on the European board of directors for the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma. In 2003, and again in 2007/08, Juliana has also worked as an expert consultant for the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee monitoring violations of the arms embargo on Somalia.

From Egypt to Mexico, Russia to Syria, journalists are increasingly coming under attack. They are murdered, imprisoned and intimidated for doing their job. If this continues we will face a growing crisis in information – a shortage of the news that we need to make sense of our globalised world, and to fight human rights abuses, understand conflict, and hold power to account.

As executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, Joel Simon is on the frontline of the global battle for media freedom. In his latest book, The New Censorship, he details that battle and offers a prescription for how to counter these new challenges.

Simon will be joining us to offer an insight into the problems we face and to examine what needs to be done to ensure future generations are not deprived of a free press.

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 for 30 years as a journalist, producer, editor and manager. He is the chairman of the International News Safety Institute (INSI).

Joel Simon is the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and has written widely on media issues. He is a regular contributor to Slate and the Columbia Journalism Review, and his articles and commentary have appeared in the New York Review of Books, The New York Times, World Policy Journal, and other publications. He is also the author of Endangered Mexico: An Environment on the Edge.

Freelance journalists are being relied upon more and more, it is imperative that they have the resources and training to protect themselves, as well as to help them get the story.

Following our event in New York with the Overseas Press Club of America (OPC), they will be coming to London to continue the discussion.

We will be bringing together a panel of freelance journalists and editors to examine what more needs to be done to make sure freelancers are supported by the news industry and have the resources available to prepare themselves for the risks of front-line reporting.

Chaired by Vaughan Smith, founder of the Frontline Club, an award-winning independent cameraman and a member of the board of representatives for the Frontline Freelance Register (FFR).

The panel:

David Williams is deputy global news editor at Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Marcus Mabry, editor at large of The New York Times and president of the Overseas Press Club of America (OPC). Previously he worked for the The New York Times and International Herald Tribune in in London and Paris, and was the associate national editor.

Ben De Pear is the editor of Channel 4 News and a member of the board of trustees for Rory Peck Trust.

Emma Beals is an independent multimedia journalist covering Syria and Iraq. She is a member of the board of representatives for the Frontline Freelance Register (FFR).

This event will take place at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs Building, 420 West 118th Street #1, room 1302, New York.

We are delighted to be teaming up with the Overseas Press Club of America (OPC) for two events on freelance safety. The first will be held at Club Quarters in New York and the second in November at the Frontline Club in London.

The brutal murders of James Foley and Steven Sotloff have again brought to the fore the dangers that front line journalists face. With freelancers being relied upon more and more, it is imperative that they have the resources and training to protect themselves as well as to help them get the story.

A panel of experts in the safety field will discuss what is available now, what more needs to be done and what responsibility news organisations have to the freelancers they employ.

The event is free, if you are in New York and able to attend please RSVP to patricia@opcofamerica.org.

The panel:

Bruce Shapiro, executive director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma.

Sawyer Alberi, chief trainer for RISC (Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues).

Judith Matloff, a veteran foreign correspondent who teaches a safety training course at the Columbia University School of Journalism.

Vaughan Smith, founder of London’s Frontline Club, award-winning independent cameraman and member of the board of representatives for the Frontline Freelance Register (FFR).

Micah Garen, an independent documentary filmmaker and multimedia journalist and founder of Four Corners Media who has worked in conflict and post-conflict zones around the world including Iraq, Afghanistan and Egypt. Garen was kidnapped in southern Iraq and held for 10 days in 2004 while filming a documentary about the looting of archaeological sites.

Kathy Eldon is a journalist, activist, and author who has transformed a personal tragedy into a positive force for good. She spoke at the Frontline Club on 5 November about her son, Dan Eldon, a 22-year-old photojournalist who was one of four journalists killed in Somalia on the 12 July 1993. The group were beaten and stoned to death by an angry mob while covering the US bombing of a building in Mogadishu. For the last 20 years, through campaigning and filmmaking, Kathy Eldon and her daughter Amy Eldon Turteltaub have kept Dan’s memory alive and celebrated his life. They set up the Creative Visions Foundation, to support activists who use media and the arts to create social impact.  Twenty years after his death, she has published her memoir In the Heart of Life: A Memoir which has just been released.

John Owen, chairman of the Frontline Club, who also chaired the event, described how he first became aware of Eldon when she was speaking at the journalists’ memorial in Washington DC where her son was being commemorated and his name etched into the glass and iron memorial sculpture. Owen recalled how he watched the video of her speech with a hardened veteran editor who had seen many disturbing images in his. They listened to Eldon‘s tribute to her son, affirming her belief that his death had not been in vain, she said on that day:

“Let our souls all be reborn today, dedicated above all to the communication of inspiration and truth.”

The entire audience [at the memorial] was in tears and Owen said that he and his colleague both wept in that editing suite. Mark Wood, the then chief executive of Reuters was in the audience and Owen praised his role in 1993 saying:

“He was a brilliant example of a how a caring news executive responds to the death of a freelancer. A very important distinction, a freelancer.”

He continued:

“We are here at the Frontline Club. Vaughan Smith created this place to honour journalists, especially freelance journalists who have given their lives to pursuing the news.  In the Frontline Club itself as you go in to the members’ room you see the pictures of his colleagues who have lost their lives… Why this place matters is because the families and friends can come to this place and know that their lives were not in vain. That they are remembered and celebrated.”

At the @frontlineclub hearing @kathyeldon speak on the legacy of her son dan and the power of story telling as creative activism #inspiring

— Lisa Anderson (@lisaandersonaa) November 5, 2013

Owen pointed out Robin Scott in the audience, the father of Roddy Scott a freelance journalist killed on the front line whilst covering the war in Chechnya. Robin and his wife Stina have also set up a foundation in their son’s memory to help educate the children of a neglected Chechen refugee community in the Pankisi Gorge, North Georgia. This was an example, of the sort of community that exists at the Frontline Club, which goes well beyond talking about the news.

Eldon read moving excerpts from her book and introduced a clip from the 1998 documentary she made with her daughter, Dying to Tell the Story.  The clip shows her daughter travelling to Somalia with Mohamed Shaffi, the only journalist to survive the mob attack on the day her brother was killed.

Wood spoke from the audience about how the incident proved a turning point, which focussed attention on front line reporters’ need for safety, hazardous environment and first aid training. These things, he explained, are now seen as routine but 20 years ago were uncommon.

Another audience member mentioned as a follow up to Wood’s comment the RISC training programme set up by journalist Sebastian Junger.  The RISC medical training, which was held at the Frontline Club in September, was set up following the death of Junger’s friend photojournalist Tim Hetherington whilst covering the conflict in Libya in 2011.

An aid worker in the audience asked what motivates journalists to do their job. The chair asked veteran journalist and Frontline Club founder Vaughan Smith who was in the audience, to offer an answer:

[Journalists have] a great desire to engage the world…a very real sense of wanting to meet a public need for good quality information which underpins all of it.”

https://twitter.com/LouisLeeson/statuses/397803849530228736

An audience member asked Eldon, after having lost her son if she would still advocate journalism to other young people.  She said while she supports journalists telling the story, she is unnerved by the idea of a kid going off to cover Mogadishu or Syria without proper training.

Smith was asked again to comment, this time on a new initiative the Frontline Club launched recently.  The Frontline Freelance Register (FFR)  is run by freelancers for freelancer to meet the need for industry standards, safety, training and a sense community for the growing body of freelancers in the hope that it will improve both their welfare and effectiveness.

With the presence of a lot of young aspiring journalists, Eldon was asked if she thought taking a risk, albeit a reasonable risk was worth doing.

She advised:

“If you feel compelled to do it, be wise and responsible and then go and do it as well as you possibly can. No story is worth your life….it’s not worth it. [But] you have to be true to yourself and follow what is your purpose in life. Don’t get killed please, because …we don’t want anybody dying.”

The last comment of the event was a poignant testimony to Dan from an audience member who said she knew him briefly and even though he was a few years her junior:

“… he had a deep compassion about him and wisdom beyond his years. He really was the legend of the good die young.”

If you missed the event, watch it back here:

His mother, Kathy Eldon, heart broken by her son’s death, turned her mind to how she could transform the horror of what happened to him into a positive force for good. For 20 years, through filmmaking and campaigning, she has kept her son’s memory alive and celebrated his life by supporting those with a similar vision.

She will be joining us to talk about her journey, how she travelled to Somalia to try and understand why her son had been killed and how his life inspired her and her daughter, Amy Eldon Turteltaub, to start the Creative Visions Foundation, to support creative activists who use media and the arts to create social impact.

Chaired by John Owen, Professor of International Journalism at City University London and Chairman of the Frontline Club. He was formerly head of CBC Television News and, more recently, Executive Producer for Al Jazeera programmes from 2010-11.

Kathy Eldon‘s memoir – In the Heart of Life: A Memoir – has just been released. The event will feature a clip from the 1998 documentary Dying to Tell the Story.