Diane Foley SPOTLIGHT
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Shaunagh talks to Diane Foley
This episode features James Foley's mum, Diane Foley. James was a freelance journalist who began reporting in Iraq, then Afghanistan, Libya and finally Syria.
In 2011, Jim was detained by Colonel Muammar Gadaffi’s Libyan regime for 44 days. In January 2012, Jim began what would be many trips in and out of northern Syria as a freelance video journalist. The Foley Family’s final communication with Jim was one week before he was kidnapped on November 22, 2012 in northern Syria. The family never heard his voice again. Jim was murdered by ISIS on August 19, 2014 in the Raqqa region of Syria.
Episode credits
Hosted and produced by Shaunagh Connaire and edited by Ryan Ferguson.
Episode transcript
Shaunagh Connaire
Welcome to Media Tribe, the podcast that's on a mission to restore faith in journalism. I'm Shaunagh Connaire, an award-winning journalist with over 10 years of experience working for some of the biggest news outlets in the industry. Every week I'm going to introduce you to some of the world's most respected journalists, filmmakers and media executives. And you're going to hear the story behind the storyteller. You'll get a sense of the integrity and hard graft that's involved in journalism, and hopefully you'll go away feeling that this craft is worth valuing.
Diane Foley
It was late morning, it was a journalist who called us. Just sobbing on the phone. I thought, "Who is this journalist? I didn't know her." She said, "Have you looked at Twitter?" I said, "No." Obviously, I looked on Twitter and that's when I saw the horrible image of Jim, that he had been beheaded.
Shaunagh Connaire
In August 2014, Diane Foley received a call that would change her life forever. A video of her son, James Foley, who had been covering the war in Syria as a freelance journalist since early 2012 had just been posted on YouTube. James had been murdered by ISIS. This is Diane’s story and her son Jame’s legacy .
Shaunagh Connaire
Diane Foley, welcome to the Media Tribe.
Diane Foley
My pleasure.
Shaunagh Connaire
It's very lovely to meet you in person, Diane. I followed your work at the foundation for years. Thank you sincerely for coming on today.
Diane Foley
It's my pleasure, Shaunagh. Always happy to talk about Jim, and our work at his foundation.
Shaunagh Connaire
Can you tell me about James, as a journalist and his work and everything he did?
Diane Foley
Jim was the oldest of our five children. From the time he was a youngster, he was always curious, just interested in life and people, in primarily people. Where they were from? What they thought? What they wanted to do? He was a child who really had a lot of friends. It took him a while to find journalism. In his undergraduate work in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he went to Marquette University. Had to get away from all his younger siblings and get a little bit of space. He majored in history and Spanish, and he didn't know what he wanted to do. He was not a math major science person, he was an avid reader. And he loved history and very interested in becoming fluent in Spanish.
Diane Foley
But one of the things that challenged him at Marquette, is Marquette University bordered on a very poor neighbourhood, very disadvantaged neighbourhood. So the university encouraged students to go out and tutor in the neighbourhood. Jim did that from the time he was a freshman. I really think it was there in many ways that his eyes were opened to the more vulnerable, children whose parents were incarcerated. There was poverty, there was crime. From then on, Jim seemed to have definitely an interest in telling the stories of other people. I think he was at first kind of shocked. He had grown up in a middle class, part of rural New Hampshire and really hadn't been exposed to inner city poverty.
Diane Foley
After his graduation from Marquette, he was thinking about the Peace Corps, Teach for America. Chose Teach for America, because he wanted to use his Spanish primarily. And they put him in an inner city school in Phoenix, where he was exposed to a lot of youngsters with huge needs. Very diverse population, American Indian, some black children, Hispanic, real mix, very challenging. They thought, who is this guy? They were very hard on Jim. They really were. I remember to find it very challenging to teach these youngsters. But he never thought he was good enough at teaching, he spent a good three to five years doing this and also began writing on his own. Got his master of fine arts in writing along the way.
Diane Foley
But eventually found that he wanted to tell real stories about a lot of these vulnerable populations. That's how he found his way back to Chicago, worked actually at the county jail for a while teaching young felons English. Helping them get their graduate degrees. But also, became interested in populations in conflict zones, because coincidentally three of his younger siblings were all in the military. It was interesting. I think Jim, was a very pacifist type of person and he really didn't understand why anyone would want to go in the military. And was very interested in why soldiers chose to do that? But once he got in Iraq and Afghanistan, he was very interested in the population. The people who lived in those countries, who were living day to day amid the conflict. That's where he started in his conflict journalism really by an embed, with the Indiana National Guard, and then in Iraq. Then with the [inaudible 00:04:52] first airborne in Afghanistan. That's where it began.
Shaunagh Connaire
After he embedded with the army, did he go directly to Libya from there? 2011 Arab Spring time, freelancers were flooding in. You and I both know that. Tell me about his time in Libya, Diane?
Diane Foley
I think Jim enjoyed his embed time. He learned a lot, which he needed to do, because really the journalism was his second career. It was after years of teaching really, and writing, as I said. He had things to learn, and so he really appreciated the embeds. But they were also restrictive as far as what they could cover, where they could go and all. Protective but restrictive. And I think, certainly when the Arab Spring started in the Middle East, he like many young freelancers very much wanted to cover that history that was taking place.
Diane Foley
And as you know, that was a time when, because of the increased risk of the conflict zone. Many staffers were moving out. So there was a need for people to cover stories in that area. So he was one of the first to go to Benghazi in early 2011. Was really enjoying being there. As you said, Shaunagh, there were many, many freelancers there. He loved it, and was very much a part of it and found it very fascinating.
Shaunagh Connaire
It was a very, very dangerous time, Diane, as you know. And James, of course, was captured by Gaddafi forces in 2011. Can you talk to us about that? I believe he was in captivity for 44 days, which must have been hell for you and your family.
Diane Foley
It was a shock. I know, my background as a nurse practitioner mother, I had no clue how dangerous the work of a freelancer was. Totally clueless about it. I just really was totally unaware. So when Jim was captured luckily, it was witnessed by a New York Times reporter, so we knew who had taken him and essentially where he was. But nevertheless, I was in shock. This was a very bizarre, horrible, horrible situation for us. It was really our second oldest son Michael, who took the lead. And he immediately started working with one of his GlobalPost, was an online media company out of Boston, Massachusetts.
Diane Foley
They were very helpful initially trying to help us find Jim, and our son Michael was very involved working with the State Department and such. Jim had three brothers. Two of the brothers were, one was army, one was Air Force. His sister was Navy, but Michael was our businessman. Michael, very close to Jim, though, and so he just took the lead. John and I were just in shock. Our job was to pray but Michael took the lead. Really, it was miraculous that he got out of Libya, through the help of David Bradley, out of The Atlantic who, coincidentally, one of his freelancers had been captured with Jim. Clare Gillis, had been captured with Jim and [Manu Lebo 00:08:26], in Libya. David wanted to help them all get out, and he found contact into the Gaddafi regime, and she was able to make them into letting them out. It was a miracle.
Shaunagh Connaire
It was the miracle.
Diane Foley
Yeah, it was.
Shaunagh Connaire
Diane, James, as far as I understand then came back to do office work, let's say at GlobalPost in Boston. It probably didn't sit very well with him sitting at a desk and trying to be a journalist at the desk. It sounds like it just didn't suit who he was. Then, when did he go into Syria for the first time?
Diane Foley
Well, he worked as an editor for GlobalPost all summer, and it didn't suit him particularly well. I don't think I realized nor did many of us that Jim did have some PTSD from his imprisonment, and he was restless. He went back to Libya, actually, with Human Rights Watch in the fall of 2011, after he had come home. Then was home for the holidays, but he actually went back into the field on his own early 2012. He began his work in Syria.
Shaunagh Connaire
After having experienced in Libya, what do you feel Diane drove him to go to a place like Syria, which was clearly exceptionally dangerous at the time as well.
Diane Foley
Jimmy had found something. He tells me, "Mom, I have found my passion." Jim really felt this was something he could and needed to do. He loved the excitement, the interest, but he loved bearing witness to history, essentially. And he was taken by the plight of the civilians in the middle of it all, and really wanted to tell their story. So, he really felt incredibly committed to it. And whenever I would bring up the fact that he could easily return to teaching or whatever, here was something he would he wanted to do.
Diane Foley
He was committed to. He had promises to keep, he would say, because throughout 2012, he came back to the United States at least twice. Once in the spring of 2012 and again, in October 2012, before he was kidnapped for the final time. His primary work in Syria was in northern Syria, and he had some good colleagues. However, his last trip when he was home in October, he knew it was getting more dangerous. He really did. But he says, "No worries, Mom. I'll be home for Christmas." He was very intentional about safety. He had taken [inaudible 00:11:28] hostile environment and first aid courses.
Diane Foley
He had taken the risk training. At that time, technologically we weren't where we are today. But he still had some kind of a way that we were supposed to be able to find him in country. And he was really trying to be as safe as he could, as a freelancer.
Shaunagh Connaire
Obviously, Diane, James, above anybody else knew the risks. And he was taking all of these precautions, as you say, he did his hostile environment training. I'm sure he was carrying a satPhone, people who were monitoring where he was, and he was checking in. All the things that we're taught to do before we go out into the field. So do you want to talk to us Diane, about... It's around Thanksgiving again, in 2012, when James was in northern Syria and what happened?
Diane Foley
Yes, one of the things Jim was wonderful about, is he really kept in touch. Whenever it was a holiday or a birthday or anything like that, he always called. So it was very strange that Thanksgiving of 2012 when we did not hear from him, on Thanksgiving Day. That was odd and it bothered me. But I didn't think much of it until the next morning, when we received a phone call from two of his colleagues, who said that Jim had been kidnapped. It was two of his freelance friends who were supposed to meet him the day before, and he did not show.
Diane Foley
And the driver told them that he and a colleague of his had been kidnapped just a few miles from the border. They were on their way home from their trip, essentially. They had been kidnapped and we couldn't believe it, but we were obviously horribly concerned, it was awful. It was awful. But we were hopeful the last time we'd been able to get him back, but this was different. Nobody witnessed the kidnapping except this driver who didn't recognize the captors. We had no idea who had kidnapped him or where he was, or if he was alive. We had no idea. So right from the beginning it was very different.
Shaunagh Connaire
What goes through your mind Diane, as a mum for the second time, history repeating itself when you get that call?
Diane Foley
I was incredulous, to be honest, that it was happening again. It just brought me to my knees. You know, I'm a person of prayer, so I just started really praying. It was just before Christmas, FBI told us not to tell anyone. So we did not, we just told closest friends and family, but no one knew where he was. He had disappeared. And that was very concerning, because we had no idea. Even GlobalPost had at this point had a security team that they engaged to help find him. And they had no idea, there were so many rumours about where he had gone, but everyone had different opinions. We were frantic. By the New Year, I really felt the need to go public, because I knew Jim had a lot of journalist friends in the Middle East.
Diane Foley
As I said, Jim was very friendly and he had met so many people in the short time he'd been there, and so we went public in hopes of somebody knowing where he was. We had a publicity campaign essentially the winter, early spring of 2013. Just begging for help.
Shaunagh Connaire
Were you in touch, I'm sure you were but with the actual American government, and were they helpful, Diane?
Diane Foley
Yes, but it was different. Last time he had been kidnapped by the Libyan Government, essentially. So the State Department was involved this time it was very different, because we had no idea who had taken him, so FBI was involved. The initial FBI agent who came to us, was just frightening because he had never been to the Middle East. He did not speak Arabic and suggested we talk to President Assad to see if he could help us find Jim. So it was obvious to us that he had no idea about what was happening on the ground in Syria. No idea, and it took him about three weeks to even get there. Right there, we just thought, "They don't know what they are doing." It was very daunting.
Diane Foley
Yes, FBI was engaged. But we had this agent for the first six months who, just that information from us, literally. What was most helpful was the security team who was trying very hard to get information. But by the summer of 2013, we were really concerned and that's when our friend David Bradley, from Washington offered help again. He'd never met Jim, but he's just a caring man. He started to help us with his research team, and by that fall, we had two sightings of Jim. A Belgian young man who had been briefly with ISIS. His father called us to tell us that Jim was alive in northern Syria. Then another Syrian gentleman also. Then that November, a full year later, we received proof of life from his capture.
Shaunagh Connaire
At that point, you definitely knew it was ISIS who had captured your son?
Diane Foley
No, we didn't. They did not identify themselves. Up until that point, the security team was convinced that Jim had been taken to Damascus, and had been captured by President Assad. But David Bradley, and I never felt that. I don't know why we weren't convinced. And it turns out, he instead had been captured by an Al Qaeda affiliate, and then swapped around and eventually got with these jihadists who were part of ISIS. But their emails did not identify themselves as such at all.
Shaunagh Connaire
That was happening, people who were kidnapped journalists who were kidnapped by militia groups and then passed along to different groups and then a lot of them ended up with ISIS, as we know. That was the end of 2013, then what happened, Diane?
Diane Foley
We were filled with hope in that, and it was awful too. It was frightening, but hopeful in an odd sense. Jim was alive, and we knew they had him. That's when I started to work really hard with the federal government and really pushed them. I started taking multiple trips to Washington trying to talk to the State Department, the FBI. I had no idea who to speak with. Like I say, I was a nurse from New Hampshire, so I knew nothing about Washington. But really I was there every month, sometimes several times a month.
Diane Foley
Eventually I quit my job that spring because we were getting more and more frantic. We knew where Jim was. The other thing that was hopeful in a way, was that beginning in February, hostages started to come out from that group. It began with the Spanish hostages, and we were so encouraged because they told us, "Jim was alive and well, and doing well. Strong and resilient." Then the French came out and we were just getting hopeful. We assumed that our government was in their fighting for us, and I was told every time I talked to our government that, "Jim was their highest priority." I guess that's the thing that made me trust our government. That our government, Jim, was the highest priority, so they must be working on him coming out.
Shaunagh Connaire
At this point Diane, it's maybe worth pointing out to our audience that, other international governments do pay ransom money in the hostage negotiation situations, whereas the US do not. Isn't that correct?
Diane Foley
Exactly. It's so true, Shaunagh. I wish I'd been told that even, I was very uneducated about our hostage policy. Nobody ever, ever told me, the reason why FBI could never directly talk to the terrorists. We had to do all the negotiating. Our skilled FBI agents, none of our people were involved with captors during that month of, quote, negotiation. It was all on us as a family. And even after that we had a better FBI agent starting that fall, much more in touch and aware. But he still used us for information and really was not allowed to give us any.
Diane Foley
We just never knew. We just didn't realize that our government's hands were tied. We should have, but we didn't. So it was really not till April 2014. David Bradley, helped us figure out that Jim was not alone, that he had been with all these other up to 18 Western hostages, and that three others were American. I didn't know that either. But then by June, we really thought, "Everyone else is out. But ours aren't." Too late. It was 18 months later. But that's when we started getting pledges for ransom, because we thought, "Well, maybe we need to try to raise some monies just ourselves. Our government obviously cannot and will not." We raised about a million dollars in pledges, but the captors wouldn't answer us when we sent them email.
Shaunagh Connaire
What were they demanding as the ransom money, Diane?
Diane Foley
They only were responsive for about one month, end of November to end of December 2013. At that time, they asked for 100 million euro, or multiple prisoners that they want to released. Of course, as a family, we could do neither, and the FBI suggested we just tell the truth. That's all we could do, that we could not do that. That's why it's too late, I realized that, "Wow, we've got to do something ourselves. Our government's not acting on this." We were able to raise the money, but then the captors wouldn't get back to us. I was actually in France, in Paris, in July, when my husband called me and told me that, "Diane, we received a message from the captors." I was elated because I thought we could tell them we have this ransom and try to negotiate.
Diane Foley
But really what that was, was just an email to tell us that. "If our government didn't stop bombing, to protect the city population, Jim was going to be killed. He was going to be the first one killed." And that's what happened on August 19th.
Shaunagh Connaire
What on earth do you do as a family then? What do you do? You're completely helpless. I'm sure at that point Diane, you'd lost hope.
Diane Foley
I was angry, Shaunagh. I guess I was angry that our government had lied to me, had told me Jim was a high priority when truthfully, he was not. And truthfully, our government's hands were tied because of our hostage policy. But no one said that to me in a clear way. They may have tried to, but I never got the message. We never got the message that it was really on us to get him out. We never heard that. We heard that they were going to help. I was angry. I felt as an American that our government could do better, darn it. This was wrong. Our government didn't realize what an awesome person Jim was, and I was angry Shaunagh. I really was and I was so disappointed and mad at myself for trusting our government and for them just lying. I was shocked, but very angry.
Shaunagh Connaire
I'm sure. Diane, the toughest question of all. Can you tell our audience what happened in August 2014, and talk about Jim's fate.
Diane Foley
It was actually a beautiful August morning. Actually, some FBI agents had come to our house, some FBI agents we knew from Boston. Oddly, here was 20 months after Jim was captured, they came to get DNA samples of my husband and I. I thought, "Okay. They didn't seem to know anything, or were good at not telling us." FBI agents are very good at not telling people anything. But these guys were delightful, and I don't really think they knew anything. But nevertheless, they showed up that morning to get DNA samples. We said, "Great, thank you." It was late morning, that it was a journalist who called us just sobbing on the phone. I thought, "Who was this journalist, I didn't know her." She said, "Have you looked at Twitter?" I said, "No." She was just crying. She couldn't stop crying.
Diane Foley
Obviously, I looked on Twitter and that's when I saw the horrible image of Jim, with his head on his back. That he had been beheaded. I just didn't know what to think. At first, it looked like Jim. I had to admit. I thought, well, I don't know. I reached out to our oldest son, Michael, our FBI agent right away, the arc security team. But FBI never got back to us. Nobody got back to us. I think we were just all like, "Oh, my God." Nobody seemed to expect this on state side. FBI, nobody, nobody. Everyone was like, "Oh, my God." I just think we were so naive as a government. President Obama had called ISIS, the JV team. I just think the fact that we didn't try to find and help Jim, or Steven Sotloff, or Peter Kassig or Kayla Mueller, meant that we knew nothing about the captors.
Diane Foley
We hadn't allowed our FBI agents to negotiate, therefore they knew nothing about the captors, knew nothing about what they wanted. We were clueless, even FBI. We did not find out that this image on Twitter was what FBI considered real until that night, when President Obama went on national TV to announce that Jim had been killed.
Shaunagh Connaire
My God. Had Obama called you? He didn't?
Diane Foley
No, no. Later.
Shaunagh Connaire
That's very disappointing, Diane.
Diane Foley
A few days later, when he had a moment between his golf games, he called us. But he did not call that day, nobody from FBI called us that day. But, things have improved since then.
Shaunagh Connaire
Well, that's because of you, Diane, we should add. I know Diane, that you set up the James Foley Foundation, three weeks after he was assassinated by ISIS. How as a mum, did you even have the strength to go there?
Diane Foley
I was angry, and I really felt that we had to do better as a country. I just thought this was unacceptable. This is unacceptable for our government to ignore the fate of two talented journalists and two compassionate aid workers. To totally lie us and abandon them, to me was unacceptable. I just prayed for strength and Jim's friends, Jim had so many people who loved him. People came out of the woodwork to help us do the legal work quickly to make it a nonprofit and wonderful people. Our family, friends, Jim's tremendous colleagues. We all decided, it had to be that we had to stand up for justice. And we had to advocate, four innocent Americans were taken hostage. I was just incredulous about that.
Diane Foley
I also felt that the fate of freelancers was unduly risky. That freelancers needed more protection, needed to security backup. They needed more support to do the work that they were being called to do. That's how we came up with that double mission to advocate to free American hostages and to protect journalists.
Shaunagh Connaire
You have done significant work, Diane. In the last few years, the hostage recovery fusion, which you've pushed to set up...
Diane Foley
President Obama, after a lot of pressure. It took the death of these four Americans, Luke Somers, was also killed in captivity that year and Warren Weinstein. It took the death of those six Americans to wake our government up. But their legacy is that President Obama did order a review of the US hostage policy, and ordered a total restructuring of how we go about it. It was called PPD 30. June 2015, he ordered this total restructuring, which started the hostage recovery fusion cell, and elected or created the Office of the Special Envoy for hostage affairs. And the hostage recovery group at the White House. Those are all filled at present. We have a lot of support from this current administration.
Diane Foley
We have that in place, and we the Foley Foundation, does research also now. We do our own qualitative review. For the last two years, we interview hostage families and returned hostages to see how well our government is in fact doing and helping bring Americans home and supporting the families.
Shaunagh Connaire
That is absolutely fantastic. I want to just point out one thing, Diane, picking up in your previous point. Just for our audience listening in, when you say freelancer, you're talking about contract workers, essentially. Most of us are freelancers, especially people who do foreign reporting and producing. I would say we get paid maybe, $300 a day for our work. Nobody is in this for the money, just so anybody listening in, who thinks it's all a very glamorous affair, dipping into war zones. People do this, as you say, as James did, to bear witness and to tell the truth.
Shaunagh Connaire
A huge reason why I set up this podcast was to showcase why journalism is important? The integrity that's involved, and why the audience really should have faith in us and in journalism. And if anybody can epitomize that, it is James Foley and the work he did and his legacy. And we certainly have you to thank for that, as well Diane, for showcasing his work.
Diane Foley
Well, one great thing that happened after Steven Sotloff and Jim's murder was that, journalists were very upset. A lot of leaders stepped up. And in early 2015, many of those journalists came together first in Washington DC, and then at Columbia University in New York. Within the next few months, I was invited too and we helped found an international coalition called a Culture of Safety Alliance. And that was kind of a historic coming together of media companies, freelancers, and press freedom nonprofits. Because too often, we found that because of turf battles, or competition within the media, that the freelancer was being abused.
Diane Foley
As you said, often paid a pittance for an article or a podcast or a photograph that they were risking their lives for no reimbursement essentially. That alliance is strong today and I'm part of their board. And we continue to work hard to make sure freelancers have access to the hostile environment and first aid training, which is very expensive for a freelancer. To take a week off, fly to these trainings and participate. So we really tried to make that more accessible. We've tried to get more security backup for freelancers, medical insurance and editor training. So people in newsrooms know more reasonably what is reasonable with their freelancers. They feel more of an obligation to protect their freelancers. We've made some progress, I feel.
Shaunagh Connaire
You absolutely have and I think it's all about the duty of care of those editors, even if people are not full time staffers. There is the duty of care to freelancers who are putting their necks on the line to send back pictures and videos and what have you, in order for editors to get clicks. So, good for you, Diane. Do you feel like the situation for journalists has improved since 2014, both on foreign soil and here in the US?
Diane Foley
That's a very good question, has improved, it depends. We have never needed investigative journalists more than now. This is a time when we sorely need the truth to come through. Unfortunately, partly because of television 24, a cycle, part of a lot of opinion pieces. There is a lot of misinformation, disinformation out there. That has really taken its toll on journalists and on the trust of journalism, and trust of journalists. That is so unfortunate, because I think that's made it much less safe for, journalists. I think journalists are more at risk now, domestically, as well as in foreign lands. I think they're at terrible risk these days.
Diane Foley
And they risk their lives to get people the truth, and that is somehow being lost in the conversation, and very concerning for me because... That's why we're passionate about preventative safety training. We feel that anyone who aspires to be a journalist of any sort domestically, internationally, or some sort of international affairs person needs to have a strong background in safety. Digital security, risk assessment, just understanding the background of where they're going? What population they're covering. We just are very passionate about that. That's why Foley Foundation, we've developed undergraduate and graduate curriculum for safety.
Shaunagh Connaire
Fantastic. Anybody listening in should go and follow your work, and you guys are great on Facebook. Going forward Diane, to wrap up on a positive note, what can both the public do in order to advocate for journalists? And what can media bosses do, going forward? In terms of freedom of press, and journalism safety?
Diane Foley
I really feel our alliance for Culture of Safety, there definitely needs to be more work together with media companies and press freedom groups, working together with journalists. Both freelance and staff. That we need to band together to promote journalists safety and to promote the truth. So that population, average citizen can recognize that people need to know the facts. Democracy is based on the truth. So if we don't have journalists, we're going to lose the ability to know how to choose our leaders. It is incredibly foundational, journalism in many ways is a cornerstone of our democracy. I just feel that us working together is essential.
Diane Foley
I also feel that universities and education needs to prepare youngsters to better understand how to get the truth. That they may not be reading the truth on social media, they may be reading someone's opinion. That they need to know where to go to get the facts? How do they really know what's going on? Some of that's education and some of that is the need to know that the Foley Foundation is a very much part of. Jim aspired to be a man of moral courage. On his trip back from Libya, he said that, "To be a journalist, he felt a journalist had to have moral courage to be willing to risk their own life, their own reputation, to make sure the truth got out." And we feel at the Foley Foundation, that's true in government and all walks of life. That we need to have the courage to do the right thing.
Diane Foley
That's part of our challenge for all of us. That's what we do through the freedom run. Every year we have an international national Run for Freedom. We try to raise awareness about the risk journalists take for us, so that we might know the truth and also the risk of international hostage taking. That this has become a favourite tool by rogue governments or criminal groups. That's a fact of life these days. So it's a challenge every day Shaunagh, but a worthy one, I hope.
Shaunagh Connaire
Diane Foley, thank you so, so much for coming on the podcast, but for also being so candid and brave and so dignified in your work. Thank you, sincerely.
Diane Foley
Well, it's my pleasure, Shaunagh. And I invite anyone to go to James Foley Foundation.org. We'd love to hear from you. Thank you.
Shaunagh Connaire
If you like what you heard on this episode of Media Tribe, that's very good news because I'm going to be dropping new shows every week and every month on my new Media Tribe Spotlight series. Also, if you haven't already, make sure to take a listen to previous shows with some legendary folk in the industry and as ever, please, please, please do leave me a rating and review as it really does help other people find this podcast. Finally, if you do have any guest suggestions, drop me a note on Twitter. I'm @shaunagh with a G-H or @shaunaghconnaire on Instagram, and again, that's with the G-H. Right, that's it. See you soon.
Shaunagh Connaire
This episode was edited by Ryan Ferguson.
