the death of Veronica Guerin was part of an emerging pattern where journalists were being killed by criminals and racketeers, not for ideological or political reasons, the seminar was told.
Mr William Orme, director of the New York based Committee to Protect Journalists, said the committee was founded in response to the deaths of journalists in places such as El Salvador, killed by government death, squads. It was supported by prominent journalists and news, organisations and offered the support of the American media.
The pattern today was different from that in 1981, when the committee was founded. In Russia 26 journalists had been killed in the past few years, half of them by criminals. In the Philippines, most of the 29 journalists killed were murdered because they were reporting on corruption and rackets rather than politics.
In Cambodia, four journalists had been killed because they were investigating corruption in the army.
So far this year 27 journalists had been murdered throughout the world. The largest number of killings, eight, was in Algeria, followed by seven in Russia. But none of those had the extraordinary impact in the US media of Ms Guerin's death, Mr Orme said. This was because she was English speaking, came from a country "Americans think they know" and was a crime reporter, with no political complications or ambiguity. "She is a familiar figure to Americans, the dogged crime reporter."
The majority of journalists killed were not high profile foreign correspondents, but local journalists well known to those who killed them.
Of the 300 murders in the past 10 years, there had been about 15 successful prosecutions. In Colombia the killing of journalists by the drug cartels used to cause outrage. Over time, with more deaths and no prosecutions, it had become increasingly rare for journalists to investigate the cartels.
There were issues related to the responsibility of news organisations, the level of insurance, the amount of time or the level of resources offered for investigative reporting, Mr Orme said. However, it was even more important that those who killed journalists covering drugs and crime must know that the killing would not stop the investigations, that reporters would never be frightened off and that their efforts would be redoubled.