At INSI it’s no different, but one job that everyone dreads is sadly our most frequent – updating the casualty figures. INSI keeps track of every journalist who dies on the job or, as happens all too often, is killed simply for doing that job. July is one of the saddest – and most infuriating – months for me at INSI. It’s when we release our biannual Killing the Messenger report listing all the journalists who’ve died during the past six months. Being gunned down or blown up were the most common ways that journalists were killed from January to June 2015 – exactly the same as all the other KTM reports I’ve edited. Most died during peace time and most of their killers will never be brought to justice – no change there over the past decade. In our podcast on the subject, former INSI director Rodney Pinder voiced his surprise at France topping the list as the deadliest country for journalists, which was echoed by The Guardian and International Business Times. One of INSI’s Twitter followers called the graphs that we produced to illustrate the report ‘bar charts of sadness’, which for me summed it up perfectly. And the numbers continue to rise with Syria, Iraq, India, Mexico, Somalia and Honduras losing media workers in July. I doubt August will be much different. All this makes the work that INSI does more important than ever. Our members are among the world’s leading media organisations and are part of a global effort to protect journalists. That network continues to grow. We’re thrilled to announce that the social news and entertainment company Buzzfeed has joined INSI. Though major news outlets form the core of our membership, freelancers are also a big part of our organisation. Providing the information that they need to stay safe, in touch and on top of the story is important to INSI. One year on from the conflict between Israel and Gaza, Jerusalem-based journalist Kate Shuttleworth shared safety tips on covering Gaza. War reporter Stephanie L. Freid also blogged about staying safe while covering difficult stories from Ebola in Guinea to angry mobs on the Turkey/Syria border. We’ll continue to bring you this unique on the ground perspective in the months ahead and feel free to join the conversation on our Facebook page or on Twitter @INSInews.  Lisa Clifford is INSI’s news and projects manager Image by Nicole Tung