On INSI’s 10th anniversary, thank you for your support

May 3, 2013 Leave a comment

By Hannah Storm

 INSI logo_3-colourDear Friend of INSI,

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the International News Safety Institute and I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your commitment to us and your support over the past decade.

We were established in 2003, dedicated to safeguarding the lives of all journalists everywhere. Born of a unique coalition of media organisations, press freedom groups and human rights campaigners, since then INSI has been providing safety advice and training to our friends and colleagues who work in dangerous and difficult conditions to bring home the story.

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One thousand two hundred and seventy three: the number of journalists killed since INSI began

December 7, 2012 Leave a comment

By Rodney Pinder

Protesters shout slogans during a rally at Quezon city, the Philippines, in 2006, to protest spate of killings of left-wing activists and journalists in the country. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

Protesters shout slogans during a rally at Quezon city, the Philippines, in 2006, to protest spate of killings of left-wing activists and journalists in the country. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

One thousand two hundred and seventy-three – that’s the number of journalists and support staff who have died trying to cover the story since we set up INSI in 2003.

That’s the number that was foremost in mind when I retired last month after a decade as Director, and one of the founders, of the International News Safety Institute.

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Why women are underrepresented in the Afghan media

November 26, 2012 1 Comment

By Nazira Babori

The first female journalists trained in Afghanistan in more than a decade produce a documentary as part of a ground-breaking training program for Afghan women journalists supported by The Asia Foundation. The hour-long documentary captures the stories of women in Afghanistan, describing both their lives under the Taliban and their hopes for the future (PRNewsFoto/The Asia Foundation)

Progress in the media and freedom of expression are generally viewed as the biggest gains of the post-Taliban era in Afghanistan. Today there are more than 75 television stations, one hundred radio stations and hundreds of publications according to the Ministry of Information and Culture in Afghanistan – a far cry from just one radio station and two papers used solely for the purpose of spreading government propaganda under Taliban rule. Despite some pitfalls, the media community is vibrant and can bring those who commit ills in the government and society to account.

However, this achievement lacks the critical component of the equal representation of women in the field. Many Afghan women looked up to a new dawn when the Taliban regime collapsed. They stepped out of their homes in huge numbers to seek education, join the workforce, and raise their voices through the media. But it was later proved that media is not very rewarding to women.

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“We are heading towards the darkest year on record for the safety of journalists”

November 23, 2012 2 Comments

By Hannah Storm

A Filipino activist place candles on top of mock coffins during a rally on the second International Day to End Impunity to denounce killings of journalists in suburban Manila, Philippines. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

Today, November 23rd, marks the International Day to End Impunity.

It was a word with which I wasn’t familiar before joining the International News Safety Institute, but today it is one of the biggest threats to journalism safety.

We hear a lot about the famous international journalists who are killed or die doing their jobs. But for each one of them, there are many more journalists whose deaths go largely unrecorded.

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Do or let die – UN and journalists vow to fight global media safety crisis

October 19, 2012 Leave a comment

Top news organisation and NGO representatives attended the conference, and approved a UN draft plan of action (CFOM)

By Helena Williams

“If a coked-up twelve year old with a Kalashnikov steps out from behind a bush and points it at me, I can’t wave the Declaration of Human Rights at him and say ‘you can’t do that, I’m a journalist.’”

Al Jazeera English’s executive producer Dairmuid Jeffreys’ comment reflected what many journalists in the room felt.

Yesterday’s Journalism Safety Conference, organised by the BBC College of Journalism and Centre for Freedom of the Media (CFOM) was marred in scepticism. Little wonder: the discussion was made to a room full of journalists.

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Malaysia conference offers journalists a ray of light in the dark

September 24, 2012 1 Comment

By Hannah Storm

Journalists display placards during a protest outside the headquarters of the Philippine National Police at suburban Quezon city in the Philippines on Monday Aug. 16, 2004. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

INSI’s Deputy Director Hannah Storm has been in Malaysia at a regional conference for journalists. She represented INSI on a safety panel.

Today I learned that there is no local word in the Philippines for ‘impunity’. And yet there have been 153 examples of this in the past 16 years because that is the number of journalists whose murderers have got away scot free.

Despite this, the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines refuses to give up its fight to bring to justice those responsible for the deaths of so many, whilst its members also strive to improve safety standards for the country’s media workers despite threats to their own security and attempts to silence them.

I’ve been honoured to spend time with the NUJP’s General Secretary Rowena Paraan this week at a regional conference for journalists.

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The war may be over in Sri Lanka, but it is still not safe for journalists there

September 19, 2012 7 Comments

By Frances Harrison

A Sri Lankan journalist reads the final report of Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation in Colombo, Sri Lanka, December 2011. The government-appointed war commission concluded that Sri Lanka’s military did not intentionally target civilians in the final stages of the country’s civil war and that ethnic rebels routinely violated international humanitarian law. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)

I recently received a heartbreaking email saying a Sri Lankan journalist, his wife and nine year old child had spent the night with all their suitcases on a bench in a park in Paris. He’d been thrown out of the house where he was been staying, after losing his part time job washing dishes in a restaurant. It was difficult to organise emergency help because media organisations were shut over the weekend and his mobile phone was often switched off to preserve the credit.

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Anger in the Nobel Peace Center

September 13, 2012 1 Comment

By Eric Matthies

‘Infidel’ by Tim Hetherington, on display in the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo (Eric Matthies)

Documentary filmmaker Eric Matthies recently visited the ‘In Afghanistan’ exhibition which showcases work by veteran photographers Lynsey Addario and Tim Hetherington’s. Hetherington was killed covering the conflict in Libya last year.

I recently found myself at the doorstep of the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway, staring at a banner over the entry that read ‘In Afghanistan: Tim Hetherington and Lynsey Addario‘. I took my time wandering through. The two great photojournalists’ work was exhibited throughout the main floor of the space. Hetherington’s riveting candid shots of US soldiers contrasted with Addario’s ‘Veiled Rebellion’ series, which portrays Afghani women’s struggle for a just life. Itwas a dramatic representation of photojournalism and unusual to see expressed on such a scale. Often, we get images in a newspaper, on a website, or in a book, whereas this was a well-curated exhibit with quality prints, videos andaccompanying text. It also served as a touching tribute to these two giants of war journalism, one tragically in memoriam.

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Going on a Hostile Environment Training course

July 30, 2012 Leave a comment

By Helena Williams

“Being put under pressure is when the real learning kicks in. We’re not trained to be fully qualified medics, soldiers or mechanics. We’re trained to know how to deal with a hostile environment and how to get out alive.”

Members of the media mark their flak jackets with TV initials at the Rixos hotel in Tripoli (Reuters)

You know that the person blindfolding you before binding your arms together with a cable tie is acting. You know that when you’re forced to your knees and you feel the barrel of an assault rifle in the small of your back, it won’t go off. After being marched through woodland in a single file, blind and holding your colleagues’ shoulders to stop you from stumbling on undergrowth, you’re thrown into a disused farm building and kept there. You know you’re eventually going to be let out. A woman whimpering in the corner hasn’t really been raped by the militia you met at the checkpoint.

I was on a Hostile Environment Training course designed for journalists. I knew that I was surrounded by actors – but that didn’t stop my pulse rising. Acting out scenarios after being drilled with tips on first aid, survival and how to distinguish different kinds of weaponry is the closest a media worker can get to an actual emergency he or she could encounter on assignment, when the training should really kick in.

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Reading between the lines: Journalism in Guatemala

July 27, 2012 1 Comment

In Guatemala, journalism is a game of self-censorship: You say as much as you can about what is happening, and as little as you can about who is doing it.

By Anna-Claire Bevan

“Guatemala’s precarious positioning makes it one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman, and one of the most dangerous places in the Americas to be a journalist” (Graham Hunt)

It’s no secret that Guatemala is a dangerous country: Central America’s largest nation is teeming with gangs, violence and crime. Its precarious positioning, on the main corridor for US-bound drugs, makes it one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman and one of the most dangerous places in the Americas to be a journalist.

Efforts to improve security have only lead to greater militarisation, abuse within the police force and an erosion of the law. Many suggest that the war on drugs is becoming a war on women; rape, torture and killing are as common now amongst females as they were during the country’s 36-year civil war, which ended in 1996.

Journalism here is a game of self-censorship: you say as much as you can about what is happening, and as little as you can about who is doing it. Those who speak out against impunity do so with the knowledge that their words could cost them their life. So, consequently, the desire to report reality is offset by concerns for personal safety.

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