Journalists reside so low in public esteem in Britain and much of the rest of the West – in the pits with used car toads, real estate snakes and politicians - that we tend to overlook the hundreds, if not thousands, of journalist around the world who are being persecuted and even killed as they strive to keep us informed.

Iraq is merely the bloodiest killing field.

Eighty-eight journalists and newsgathering colleagues have died there since Terry Lloyd, Fred Nerac and Hussein Osman of ITN perished in crossfire between Americans and Iraqis on 22 March 2003, the opening weekend of the war.

That is significantly more than the number of newsmen and women who died in 20 years of Vietnam.

The world tends to notice when famous international reporters become casualties of war. Not many of us realise that two-thirds of the dead in Iraq are Iraqis - writers, producers, camera operators, photographers and support staff trying to put press freedom into practice for the very first time.

Most of the 37 news staff kidnapped by insurgents for money or out of hate also were Iraqi. Mercifully, 31 were freed unharmed.

Murder, kidnapping, beatings and persecution are the lot of far too many journalists trying to report truthfully in places like the Philippines, Mexico, Colombia, Haiti, Bangladesh, Russia and elsewhere.

More than 1,300 journalists and support staff such as drivers, translators and fixers, died doing their jobs in the past 10 years and most of them were in their own countries, murdered for what they do.

In many places a bullet is the cheapest and most effective form of censorship. It is widely used by criminals, corrupt political elements and nasty security forces that fear exposure – especially as it is relatively risk-free.

It removes permanently the pesky reporter and intimidates his or her colleagues into silence or flight.

If what Robbie Williams says is true, and he has shared a snort or two with journalist friends in Britain, they would do well to remember that scores of their colleagues have been killed, beaten and tortured by drug traffickers in Mexico and Colombia for trying to probe their affairs.

And, by and large, these media murderers get away with it.

Barely 10 per cent of journalist killers around the world have been prosecuted over the past 10-15 years. This scandalous impunity continues and stains with blood our glib talk of a global free flow of information in the 21st century.

Until governments representing free societies everywhere put their muscle behind real efforts to end this impunity, more news people will die and our cherished freedom to be informed will be eroded still further.

At a recent gathering of prominent journalists arranged by the International News Safety Institute in New York, speakers suggested murders of journalists and impunity for those who were responsible should be made a "social indicator" of a country.

Financial institutions such as the World Bank could pressure governments by predicating aid on their press freedom records.

And journalists themselves could do more by raising their standards and attracting more respect.

"We must build up what we do so it is unassailable, so that journalism is seen at its highest," said one.

Rodney Pinder is the director of the International News Safety Institute www.newssafety.com

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