We all owe a debt to James Foley. He was killed in the effort to bring news of the wars in the Arab world to the rest of us, to make them more humanly comprehensible. Foley, who was murdered, on video, by the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, was acting on behalf of two principles: the right to know and the need to know. In this sense, Foley’s father did not exaggerate in calling him “a martyr for freedom.” The more I learn about the man and his work, the more my admiration grows. His journalism was clear-eyed, empathetic, and without the bravado that can creep into war reporting as an anesthetic against fear. By the accounts of his former fellow-prisoners (those who happen to be citizens of countries that pay ransom to terror groups), he was generous, thoughtful, good-humored, unbreakable in spirit. If you had to be shackled with someone in terrifying circumstances, for months on end, you would want it to be James Foley.

Read more

The Guardian partners with more local news outlets to tell under-reported stories - As the news organization gains footing in the US, more journalistic partnerships are being launched to tell stories from different areas of the country.

The digital age may have increased competition between news outlets as the online fight for clicks and eyeballs becomes ever more fierce, but this week goes to show that digital journalism also enables partnerships that once would have seemed unlikely.

Before the weekend comes around, The Guardian will feature two digital collaborations with smaller, local news outlets: The last of a four-part collaborative project with The Texas Observer about the US immigration crisis and the deaths of undocumented immigrants in Texas goes online today. Later this week, The Guardian and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch will be launching a collaborative project about racial profiling in the wake of the events in Ferguson.

Read more