In their role of gathering and distributing information from places that few of us can reach individuals working for media companies can find themselves working in "dangerous locations" - war zones, civil and political unrest as well as the sites of natural disasters.

In 2006, in response to the level of violence directed at journalists, and others working for media companies, the UN Security council, unanimously adopted resolution 1738, which called for an end to such practices.

In its March 2007 report into the protection of journalists - Killing The Messenger - the International News Safety Institute highlighted that in the preceding 10 years 1,000 journalists and support staff around the globe had died trying to report the news. In 2008 the totals by region were as follows:

•   Africa     8
•   Asia   47
•   Europe   10
•   Americas   26
•   Middle East    18

Readers should not be surprised to learn that a number of the larger media companies have already added personal DNA profiling to their standard operating procedures.