The role of freelancers, who make a living by selling individual stories, photos and video to multiple media outlets, has expanded across conflict zones in recent years with the spread of technology and social media. Some are cautious and well-trained; Others take major risks. And they often lack the institutional support that staff journalists receive if they get into trouble in a conflict zone.

"There is no question that people with less experience and less support are venturing out into conflict zones and seeking to make their name as journalists," said Joel Simon, the executive director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

While freelance journalists make important contributions, those who go into danger without the support of an established organization can face immense challenges, said Simon, who worked as a freelancer himself in Latin America. If freelancers are injured or detained, for example, it can take longer for word to get out because no one is monitoring their whereabouts '€” and early intervention can be crucial to their survival, he said.

According to the committee's data, just under half of the 70 journalists killed in Syria since the conflict began in 2011 have been freelancers. Foley, who was beheaded by Islamic militants in a grisly video released last week, is one of them, and militants threatened to make Sotloff their next victim.

Other militants freed Curtis on Sunday.

Ellen Shearer, the co-director of Northwestern University's National Security Journalism Initiative and one of Foley's former professors, said when Foley went missing in 2012, the Boston-based media company GlobalPost, one of the organizations he freelanced for, went "above and beyond" in working behind the scenes to try to get him freed. But other freelancers may not get that kind of backing, she said.

Major news organizations may have a risk assessment team determining whether a place is safe and things for employees like hostile environment training, health insurance, life insurance, kidnap and ransom insurance and expensive protective equipment including helmets and fitted body armor.

Reporters Without Borders tries to fill the gap by loaning freelancers protective gear and GPS personal distress beacons, and providing safety training sessions and insurance, said Delphine Halgand, the U.S. director of the Paris-based group.

Francesca Borri, an Italian journalist who became a freelancer in Syria two years ago, said low pay can also put freelancers in more danger. Borri, 34, said many freelancers go without protective gear and rely on less experienced guides instead of people like the driver and "fixer" she used in Syria, who cost her $1,000 per day. She called freelancers "second-class journalists" in an article last year but she said Tuesday in a telephone interview from Gaza that actually they are "exploited journalists."

Some organizations try to discourage risk-taking by refusing to take non-commissioned work from dangerous places. In 2013, the British newspaper The Sunday Times made news when it rejected pictures from a British freelancer who went to Syria.

But there is no standard policy. When border crossings in northern Syria fell to the rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad in early 2012, many journalists went in because they could get in without a visa. When a surge in militant groups and a wave of kidnappings made it increasingly dangerous, many news organizations suspended reporting trips to opposition-held northern and eastern Syria.

Some media organizations still bought material from freelancers in the danger zone, many of whom relied on local Syrian "fixers" they barely knew. Several freed hostages reported being betrayed by their "fixers."

James Brabazon, a British documentary filmmaker and freelance journalist who has reported from conflict zones including Liberia, cautioned against thinking of all freelancers as young, inexperienced and untrained. But Brabazon, 42, said it's true that journalists starting out can make a name for themselves with "spectacular and unique coverage" and that some young journalists may see conflict journalism as "a shortcut" to getting a good job.

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Associated Press reporter Zeina Karam contributed to this report from Beirut.

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Follow Jessica Gresko at http://twitter.com/jessicagresko (**)

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