Freelancing on the frontline

[video:youtube:WGTKFqcyfk0] Vaughan Smith, Frontline Club founder, talks to Press TV Iran about the dangers of freelancing on the frontline in the light of the recent kidnapping of Amanda Lindhout, Nigel Brennan, their Somali driver and two Somali guards. Vaughan makes the point that most journalists who are kidnapped or killed are from the countries they are reporting in. It’s something I’ve wondered about in the Lindhout story in Somalia. Three Somalians were kidnapped along with the journalists, and are arguably in far greater danger than the foreign journalists, yet we hear very little about them. You have to do some digging just to find out their names… This is just one of the reasons the Frontline Club set up the Fixer’s Fund over a year ago.

In response to the murder of Ajmal Naqshbandi in Afghanistan we have started a fund for the families of fixers killed or injured while working in international media. link

You can donate to the fund here. I continue to update the original post about the kidnappings in Somalia with the latest news, what little there is of it, as and when it appears on the wires.