News agency rejects freelancers in Syria after Foley killing

A top international news agency announced Wednesday that it will no longer accept freelance work from journalists traveling to “rebel-held Syria” after the killing of former contributor James Foley.

“If someone travels to Syria and offers us images or information when they return, we will not use it,” Agence France-Presse (AFP) said in a blog post on its website. “Freelancers have paid a high price in the Syrian conflict. High enough. We will not encourage people to take that kind of risk.”

{mosads}AFP has not sent its staff into parts of Syria controlled by rebel forces since August 2013 out of a fear they will become “targets, or commodities to be traded for ransom.” Reporters still work out of its Damascus bureau and the group still plans to use local stringers who already live in those areas.

Foley was kidnapped in 2012 while reporting on the civil war in Syria. He eventually was captured by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), who released a video in August showing his beheading. 

The agency’s journalists will still report from other war zones with “pockets of relative safety where a journalist can work,” including Ukraine, Gaza and the Central African Republic. Those journalists will receive training on working in “hostile environments” as well as “full protective gear.”

“A news agency cannot stop covering conflict,” the blog post said. “But we can do everything we can to keep our teams safe.”

It also plans to launch a blog warning journalists of unsafe places to avoid.