Male news executives like to think we have become more enlightened over the years as we made decisions about who should cover wars and who was not suited and should stay at home.

As I made judgments, as head of Newsgathering at the BBC and then president and managing director of CNN International, about whom to assign to the hellholes around the globe, the gender of a war correspondent was always under the surface. Was the story suitable for a woman? Would she prove a distraction? Was her hair too long or too blonde? Did her flak jacket fit? Crucially: Was she at greater risk of harassment, sexual assault and rape than her male colleagues?

My fears went mostly unspoken — particularly as most of the women working for me were too feisty to be challenged!

Last month’s apparently targeted death in Syria of veteran war correspondent Marie Colvin of Britain’s Sunday Times was a tragic reminder that our female colleagues share the risks with many in this profession. Another searing example of the very special risks that women face came in February last year in Cairo with the appalling sexual attack on Lara Logan from CBS News. This week she describes that attack in a new book from the International News Safety Institute, No Woman’s Land: On the Frontlines with Female Reporters. She joins 40 other media women in graphically describing the special additional risks they’ve faced over the years — and they offer their advice on how to prepare for that and how to continue to do their jobs.

Lara Logan’s account of her ordeal at the hands of “300 baying men” tackles for probably the first time the taboo subject of what can happen to female journalists just about anywhere, but more so in the middle of a frenzied mob as law and order breaks down.

“I remember begging for my life,” she says. “I remember giving up. I remember fighting back. I remember accepting my death. And I remember clearly, making a decision to go down fighting with my last breath.”

Another distinguished female war correspondent, the BBC’s Lyse Doucet, believes that in most places she works, Western women are regarded almost as a “third gender,” not like men, not like local women. In traditional societies particularly they are granted the special privileges given to guests and accorded the protection women are believed to need — as happened with the many Egyptian men in Cairo who linked their arms and escorted Doucet through rowdy crowds. That was in sharp contrast to what happened to Lara Logan in the same city around the same time.

Logan writes in the book about the “ancient tactic of terrifying people into submission or silence … [though] I do not believe it should stop or deter women from doing this kind of work.”

She reminds us that “sexual violence — rape — is a unique, humiliating weapon. It is used to great effect against both men and women.”

This book is the first that addresses the welfare of media women who work in hostile zones and is a powerful story about journalistic passion and the extra dangers that women are prepared to face.

It is also a strident reminder that female journalists have a different take on war and conflict. Unlike many of their male counterparts, they are unimpressed by the whiz-bang of war, the so-called precision weapons. They know far too well that “collateral damage” means men, women and frequently children. I believe that understanding makes them better journalists.

PHOTO: Journalist Marie Colvin poses for a photograph with Libyan rebels (unseen) in Misrata, June 4, 2011. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

The needlework school had another function that day – it was the HQ for the police and  military preparing to break the siege. I had been summoned there to assist in the hostage negotiations, though as I arrived the Iranians dumped one dead hostage onto the street. They had shot him in the head and threatened to shoot another within the hour.

Within minutes members of Britain’s Special Air Services (SAS) were given orders to storm the embassy and break the siege. They did so in 43 minutes, rescuing all but one of the hostages and shooting dead five of the six dissidents. The sixth later stood trial at the Old Bailey and was jailed for life.

It was history in the making. The SAS’s finest hour. All covered live on television (though, remarkably, the interruption of regular programming – a John Wayne western on one channel, the final of a snooker contest on the other – was considered a bold move on the part of the programmers, subject to much criticism from viewers in the days after.)

Three weeks later, on June 1st, 1980, CNN was launched and a revolution in continuous news began. As a former hostage, and a newsman for more than 40 years, I am conflicted.

How would the modern-day media cover a siege such as the 1980 one?  How would the relentless, frequently breathless and opinionated media of 2010 report on the delicate, terrifying negotiations that went on 30 years ago this week?

There was at least one television set inside the Iranian embassy, though for some reason it was not working. There was a radio – and the hostages and their captors sat around it like attentive children, sobbing, laughing and occasionally arguing as broadcasts were made. The slightest error or nuanced report was a cause for distress.

These were pre-Internet days. No texts by phone – telephone pagers were considered state of the art. No Facebook, no Flickr, and absolutely no Twitter.

As a journalist that seems terrible. As a former hostage I am not so sure.

What might have been the outcome if insensitive, speculative or just plain bad reportage had been provided and available to the hostage takers? Supposing clandestine filming of the preparations to break the siege had been transmitted on the BBC, CNN or Fox?

Experience tells me there is no such thing as a complete news blackout. The very best intentions by responsible media organizations can be confounded either by screw-ups or by commentators sitting outside what used to be a cozy circle. And social media contributors have their own take on information flow – mostly innocent chatter, sometimes rabid or with a fixed agenda.

It’s a good time for media outlets to plan for the next siege. And to determine, in advance, what their response might be.

It’s also a good time to reflect on our reporting of the victims of terrorist acts. My ordeal was a brief one, though sufficient to write my Last Will and Testament and leave me with long-lasting after-effects. It ended my ambition to be a dashing war correspondent and started me thinking about the effects of trauma on members of the media.

Thirty years on, responsible media organizations –Reuters, AP, the BBC, CNN and others – take for granted the duty of care they have for their own staff. Other media organizations might care to examine their own consciences.