There are some years that are better to have behind you. Forinternational news organisations that cover the more dangerous corners of theworld, 2012 was one of those years. According to the International PressInstitute, there were a record number of journalists killed last year either inthe line of duty or as a consequence of their reporting. An unprecedented 132journalists’ lives were taken in 2012, the highest number since the IPI startedsystematically keeping track of journalists’ deaths in 1997.
2013 started with the disturbing news that freelancecorrespondent James Foley, 39, who has done extensive and outstanding work forGlobalPost in the war zones of Afghanistan, Syria and Libya, had gone missingin Syria. The family has been through this before. In 2011, Foley was capturedin Libya along with three other colleagues. The three were held for 44 days byforces loyal to Mohammed Gaddafi before being released. A fourth journalist,South African Anton Hammerl, was killed during their initial capture. Foley isa brave and dedicated correspondent who was determined to return to the fieldto continue reporting and eventually covered the final days of Gaddafi’sregime.
Few details are known about Foley and his captors at thispoint. One witness said that Foley was abducted from his vehicle by men in anunmarked car who were wielding Kalashnikov rifles. He had been traveling on aroad in Idlib Province, a region which has seen heavy fighting between Syrianrebels and government forces.
No place on earth was more dangerous for reporters to workthan Syria, where the Committee to Protect Journalists recorded 28 deaths in2012 and numerous kidnappings. Among those killed in Syria were several dearfriends, including the New York Times’ Anthony Shadid and Sunday Times ofLondon’s Marie Colvin.
In a time of diminishing resources for international newsorganizations, NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Richard Engel l andothers in the field have stressed the need for correspondents to have adequatetraining and guidance to do their work safely. To that end, GlobalPost has triedto be diligent and has codified its expectations for correspondents in a fieldguide titled GroundTruth. In addition to practical advice for operating safelyin the field, GroundTruth includes a collection of essays in whichcorrespondents share lessons learned from the field.
Last year, Foley wrote a column, which was titled, “Steppingback to assess a bad day in Libya.” The essay was about his decision to returnto keep covering the story in Libya even after being held in captivity for 44days and seeing a friend and colleague killed in the process. He wroteself-effacingly about mistakes he had made, writing, “my decision making thatday was clouded by an adrenalin-influenced desire to be there first.”
And he wrote of the caution that he planned to bring tofuture assignments. But in the essay which he wrote from Misrata, Libya, healso summed up in one sparse sentence what might be the motivating force in hiscareer as a journalist and the reason he wanted to be in Syria: “This storymatters and I wanted to be here telling it from the frontlines.”
Charles M. Sennott is GlobalPost’s Executive Editor andco-founder
