Elizabeth Palmer: A sobering reminder of some of the risks that journalists in the field run every day. And, I should add, not necessarily in war zones. Iraq is certainly much on the minds of many of you who are in and out at the moment. We're going to try also to talk to journalists who run the risk of reprisals from repressive governments or regimes that have every interest in censoring journalists or making sure that the press is not free. I'm sure Cyrus knows a great deal about that.

We're also going to try and talk about two aspects of the safety issue. How can we make the doing of our jobs safer? And what can be done to pressure regimes that do not investigate the deaths of journalists, to do so - the whole question of impunity for governments that are complicit in having journalists murdered or intimidated.

It would be helpful to be reminded of the numbers of people who are affected. I'm going to turn over to Rodney Pinder of the International News Safety Institute to go over the numbers of people who are in jail or have been killed very recently.

Rodney Pinder (director, International News Safety Institute): I was just reminded this morning that it's Armistice Day today but, I'm afraid, not yet for many journalists. For so many of us, a kind of new world war continues. Since we met at News Xchange last year, we mourn 99 news staff dead, doing their jobs in 31 countries across the developing world.

All but two of them were local journalists covering the domestic scene, and they are always the vast majority of casualties. All but a handful of them were murdered because of their work, trying to exercise the freedom to report in their own homes. They are the victims of criminals, especially drug traffickers; corrupt politicians and businessmen, protected by crooked legal and legislative systems. Some were investigative reporters; some merely exercising what they thought was the right to free speech on radio and television.

The Philippines emerged in the past year as the worst killing ground outside the Iraq war. Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Haiti, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Thailand, Nepal and Afghanistan were other black spots. But, of course, the worst of all was Iraq, with 93 news media staff dead in 2-1/2 years of conflict. This is worse than the 20 years of Vietnam, and the worst toll of journalists in a conflict since World War II. Two-thirds of the dead were local Iraqis, "enjoying" the first fruits of press freedom. Bitter fruits, indeed, for those unsung journalist-heroes of the first major war of our new century.

Elizabeth Palmer: We have standing by, by satellite from Baghdad, Alastair MacDonald, who is the Reuters bureau chief. Alastair, how possible is it for journalists now to work in Baghdad and not court a completely unacceptable risk of being killed or injured while in the field?

Alastair MacDonald (Baghdad bureau chief, Reuters): It's clearly possible, in the sense that we are here and we are running risks that we clearly deem are acceptable. It does take extraordinary measures - for a start, extraordinary security measures around the compound where I'm standing now. The hotels directly behind me were the target of a triple car-bomb attack just a couple of weeks ago, which appears to have been directed specifically at the media who occupy part of that complex. In the other areas of Baghdad where journalists are working, we're clearly having to take that into account and protect ourselves. There is a possibility to do good and extensive work here. We believe we are contributing, but we have a great number of difficulties to overcome.

Elizabeth Palmer: How extensively do you rely on local Iraqi journalists to do the work now?

Alastair MacDonald: Reuters, in common with the other agencies, largely uses local staff wherever we are in the world. The images that you see brought in from the photographers and cameramen in most countries are largely shot by local staff. And much of the footwork - simply in terms of the number of people we can have out, in any country - is done by locals. What we're more constrained in is getting more experienced journalists who've worked elsewhere and who are mostly foreigners out into the field to help those local staff do their jobs better, and bring some kind of first-person view that is perhaps more informed by a wider view of the world than someone who has never left their hometown can bring.

That is something we try to compensate for by having people here based in Baghdad, in daily contact with people who are going out from this office, in continual contact with people around the country who we're in contact with by phone, and who are coming to visit us in Baghdad, being trained, schooled and directed from here. The reliance in Iraq is perhaps heavier in the sense that there are fewer foreigners here who can go out and share those risks - although I'm not sure that in other circumstances we would have any fewer local staff than we do at the moment.

Elizabeth Palmer: I think we're all aware of the risk of the car bombs for the journalists in the field. But what sorts of things do your cameramen, particularly, and journalists have to worry about when they come into contact with the U.S. forces now?

Alastair MacDonald: This is a particular issue that we are rather concerned about at the moment. We accept that there is a risk. There's a war going on and car bombs going off on a regular basis - one went off about an hour ago, just about a kilometre from where I'm standing. There is a part of one side of the forces involved in this conflict who are directly targeting foreigners and anyone working with foreigners - who are kidnapping and killing people simply because of who they are. This is in many ways the biggest risk we face.

What we are having problems with at the moment, however, is trying to persuade the U.S. military authorities - and, to some extent, the Iraqi government too - that there is more that they need to do to allow us to work freely and independently, and to avoid operating against the interests of free reporting.

We're concerned that a number of journalists have been killed by U.S. forces, who do appear to be very quick to target people who may be around the scenes of bombings and other incidents of the conflict without making sufficient checks as to their identity. We've regularly called for deeper inquiries and more co-operation to try to ensure that that doesn't happen. It continues to happen. One of Reuters' soundmen was shot dead just two months ago here in Baghdad by U.S. soldiers as he was trying to work around the scene of a bombing.

We are particularly concerned at the moment with the detentions of journalists. The U.S. authorities are holding at least five journalists in Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca, its subsidiary facility, who are journalists for international media organisations. Three of those have worked for Reuters. They are being held without charge, and media organisations are being given no opportunity to co-operate with the authorities to perhaps explain why their employees may have fallen under suspicion.

We have argued that the very nature of journalism brings one under suspicion from both sides in the conflict, merely by the attempt to operate independently in the area of the conflict. The U.S. authorities have refused to accept this argument, and we've been told flatly here in Baghdad that journalists arrested on suspicion of some form of co-operation or even simply knowledge of insurgent activity will be treated exactly the same as anyone else.

We think that is very wrong, and that our colleagues who've been arrested largely because they have images on their cameras, found in their homes, of combat taking place in towns like Ramadi, Mosul and Talafar are in a very different category from someone who may be seen as having no connection with journalism and may be gathering these images for some other purpose.