We do not shoot the messenger, but nor do we welcome those who risk their lives for the values we say we espouse

The most effective form of censorship is murder. Journalists in the Philippines understand that: last month Fernando Batul, a radio commentator in the province of Mindanao, was gunned down as he drove to work. The following day the Philippines justice secretary, Raul Gonzalez, suggested that journalists should carry weapons to protect themselves, as if that would absolve the police of responsibility for finding the motorbike-riding gunmen who committed the crime.

In the past five years, 40 journalists have been killed in the Philippines. Gonzalez has suggested that some were killed "in drinking sprees or because of a woman", but Filipino journalists say that most of their colleagues perished because they reported on drug barons and corrupt politicians.

Speaking at the International Press Institute Congress in Edinburgh, the Philippines columnist José Manuel Romualdez said the journalists came into conflict with "local government kingpins". He added: "There will be no end to the killings until the government sends a strong message that the murderers will be caught and punished." The US and European governments endorse such calls for an end to impunity, but sympathy is not enough.

In recent years, western news organisations have started to take security more seriously. Most US and European TV companies insist that those working in war zones go through hostile environment training beforehand. It's no guarantee: Iraq remains the most dangerous conflict in the world, and just this week two journalists from CBS News were killed and another badly injured when a roadside bomb blew up the military vehicle in which they were travelling. Research by the International News Safety Institute (www.newssafety.com), to be published later this year, suggests that only 20 per cent of journalists killed in action are caught in crossfire. The vast majority - 70 per cent - are murdered. Most of those are not well-resourced international journalists, but people like Fernando Batul, reporting on their own communities.

"The sad truth is that killing a reporter is the cheapest and most effective way of silencing him or her and setting an example to others," said Rodney Pinder of INSI, adding that in some parts of Latin America many journalists are too frightened to report on drug cartels and paramilitaries, so they stick to show business and celebrities.

Nowadays governments, warlords, rebels and gang leaders all read the internet and watch satellite TV, so they are more aware of the power of information. According to the French organisation Reporters Sans Frontières, in the Somali capital Mogadishu, where fighting between warlords and Islamic leaders has claimed at least a hundred lives in the past few weeks, faction leaders regard reporters as "enemies or servants, paying between $50 and $500 to plant misleading stories in the local papers". Those who sign up to one side or other get armed protection and political cover, while those who will not be bought are threatened.

The same is true in Iraq. All journalists need protection, and sometimes the only way to get a story is to travel with Moqtada al-Sadr's militia or embed with the Americans. Bias is not automatic: many reporters do both at different times, to get various angles on the story. But increasingly the temptation for Iraqi journalists is to stick with one militia or party - it could save their lives. As a producer with al-Arabiya remarked after his colleagues Atwar Bahjat, Khaled Mahmoud al-Falahi and Adnan Khairallah were murdered, "Sometimes it seems that only the impartial are targeted, because they have no protection." It is simply too dangerous to go out alone.

When reporters are imprisoned, solidarity sometimes works. Three Malawian journalists were freed following lobbying by the Johannesburg-based Media Institute for Southern Africa. More gratifying still, the attorney general who had ordered their arrest was later sacked. But too often, no one cares.

In Britain, we pat ourselves on the back for our free press. In spite of the Hutton report and the Official Secrets Act, information has a habit of getting out. Journalists may occasionally lose their jobs after clashing with the government or owners, but they don't wind up in prison.

Media liberalisation is a condition for receiving UK aid. Help to Ethiopia was recently suspended partly because journalists were being imprisoned and free speech quelled by the Addis Ababa authorities. Yet when journalists are forced into exile - sometimes the only way of escaping murder - neither the British government nor the public seems interested.

The Bristol-based Exiled Journalists Network has 146 people on its books; the largest number, 14, are from Zimbabwe, where Robert Mugabe's government has forced nearly all independent media to shut down. Some were household names in their own country, fêted for battling against the government and speaking out. Yet in Britain, they are asylum-seekers: scorned, unemployed and often destitute. We do not shoot the messenger, but nor do we welcome those who risk their lives for the values we say we espouse.

Lindsey Hilsum is international editor for Channel 4 News

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