A golden rule for journalists is to report the story, not become it.

Unfortunately for Amanda Lindhout, this was not the case. Kidnapped in Somalia, the Canadian journalist endured 15 months of captivity before her release this week.

Snatched along with Australian photographer Nigel Brennan in August 2008, the pair says they were beaten, tortured and left alone, often without food.

The sad details of what they experienced will emerge in coming weeks as they return home and begin to heal. (Both were reported Friday to be in good condition at a Nairobi hospital.)

But their release has also sparked discussion about journalists in conflict zones – and questions about Lindhout's credentials. Online blogs note her dozens of Facebook photos striking glamorous poses amid conflict.

Gutsy reporter? Or naive thrill-seeker?

The fact is, journalists, experienced or not, get kidnapped. They have been grabbed in unprecedented numbers in the past five years and victims include respected reporters like The New York Times' David Rohde, who was held by the Taliban for eight months until he managed to escape in June.

Many media outlets send their staff to "hostile environment training" courses to help prepare for this reality, among others. In 2006, I spent a memorable week in a Virginia field getting roughed up by ex-British marines, who seemed to relish the opportunity to yank me out of the car by my hair and throw a burlap sack on my head in a fake hostage-taking.

But that's the difference when you work for the Star or major news outlets, as opposed to when you freelance. The paper pays for training and to protect journalists in the field.

There's also the preparation. Before a brief trip to Mogadishu with a photographer, I had spent weeks researching, contacting dozens of local journalists and Somalis, and hired a driver and guards from various clans.

"What most people I know do – what I do – is to make every effort to talk to people who have already done what you are considering, placing the greatest trust in those who most recently made the journey down that road, into that village, etc.," says my colleague Mitch Potter, who has extensive experience reporting in the world's hotspots.

"And, often, you end up cancelling or altering plans based on what you hear."

Lindhout, by most accounts, had done little of this.

The 28-year-old Alberta native certainly had experience travelling through war zones in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, but as New York Times journalist Jeffrey Gettleman wrote recently, Somalia redefines chaos.

Anyone under the age of 18 in Mogadishu has grown up amid poverty and anarchy. Kidnappings, like piracy, are one of the few ways to make money. Guns are everywhere.

Norwegian photojournalist and cameraman André Liohn has experience in Somalia and ran into Lindhout in Ethiopia prior to her trip. After her kidnapping he said he was impressed with her bravery but noted, "You cannot just come to the city and go out looking for stories."

One journalist generous in her help of others is Nairobi-based Voice of America reporter Alisha Ryu. She has taken many risks and has the scar on her neck from a Baghdad bombing as proof. She is in and out of Somalia and knows the terrain intimately.

"I think she probably should have reached out to people who had been there. The situation in Somalia changes almost on a daily situation," says Ryu.

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"It is really tempting to go into a conflict zone and make your name there and to move up the ladder and be recognized. That's totally understandable. But without a real organization behind you to supply the resources, the money to hire the fixers, drivers, security, whatever you need in order to protect yourself, it's difficult."

But what happens when the financial constraints in the news business mean media outlets are reluctant to foot the cost of foreign reporting?

And what does it mean these days to be a journalist when anyone with a blog is supposedly "reporting?"

Foreign work is increasingly falling to freelancers, experienced or not. And when their livelihood is based on selling the story that others can't get, it makes places like Somalia attractive.

Star correspondent Paul Watson, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his photo of a dead U.S. soldier being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu in 1993 and spent weeks criss-crossing Afghanistan with the Taliban, says he hates the hand-wringing that goes on among "journalists, overpaid security consultants and other adrenaline junkies who flit around war zones" following a kidnapping.

"We need to know what's going on in the darkest corners of the world. So we should give thanks to the people willing to stick their necks out and tell us from street-level, not second-guess them when things go wrong."

Why shouldn't Lindhout have tried to get her story – who are we to judge?

It's a valid question, but one that also must be asked is how does our reporting impact others?

First concern should be for those you have asked to help – the drivers, fixers, translators and sources. "If those people get hurt as a result of you, there is a degree of responsibility," says Ryu.

Somali Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, a Canadian, was clearly overjoyed by Lindhout and Brennan's release when we talked Thursday, but did note, "Some people really risked their lives to get them from where they were."

Somalia is a country crying out for coverage. Risks need to be taken. The question is, which ones.