Report on Safety Training Course

Mike Charlton

7 June 2004

Five months ago, I attended a Hostile Environments training course on a bursary funded by the Rory Peck Trust. This report, like many other things in day to day life, was put on the backburner.

I sit here now, 7.30pm in Dubai. I should be having a drink with a very good friend who was finishing a shoot in Saudi and coming to stay with my wife and I. Alas, it is not to be. Simon Cumbers was shot dead by ‘unknown gunmen’ whilst filming for the BBC in Riyadh. Last night I talked to him. Now he is dead.

Bang! Reality comes back. The profession we choose can exact a high price. I now plan to attend another funeral, one of many over the years. I am not the immediate family of any of the journalists or cameramen whose funerals I have been to. We are, however, part of a greater family, thrown together in times of conflict and hardship. So, maybe I can class myself as a distant cousin and mourn.

Back to the subject at hand. Training.

If I can say one thing it is that these courses are vital. Yes, I have done them in the past and it is easy to be blasé. ‘I’ve done all that’, ‘I don’t need anymore training’ ...Rubbish. If you learn one thing, one morsel of information that adheres to a dark part of your brain but surfaces at just the right time and place to save yourself or someone else’s life, then the whole course will have been worthwhile.

Given the world we live in today, where your office block can be destroyed, your train blown up, your nightclub obliterated - we can take nothing in daily life for granted anymore. Yet in the profession of journalism - and yes, I class every cameraman and soundman in this, they all contribute - we actively seek out these situations. Thus we are more likely to suffer than most. It is becoming apparent that in more and more cases, journalists are being actively targeted, making the profession even more dangerous in conflict areas.

Knowledge of medical techniques is something I rate above all others. The Hostile Environments course was packed full of information on this and the fear of having a colleague die because I did not revise my course notes is something that will inspire me to do so. In addition to this, there were lectures on weapons, land mines, extreme weather, negotiation... the list goes on.

If one small portion of this sticks to my mind then it will all have been worthwhile. And stick to my mind it will. For every now and then, the death or injury of a colleague snaps me awake. What could or would I have done differently? Is there anything that could have been done to make it safer?

Or the big question.

Would I have done that?

I know what it is to be caught up in the thrill of a story. An exclusive. Being the first.

Step back though. If the course imparts one vital piece of knowledge it is this.

Planning.

The training course goes through this again and again. Where are you going? Who are you meeting? What is the security situation? Ask the questions. Both of yourself, the people around you and the people you may be dealing with.

Plan. Plan. Plan.

Question. Question. Question.

In the absence of a large team, this process can be more difficult. In the absence of experience, then the credibility to question can become more difficult. A course can lend enough knowledge to sway a situation into more caution than recklessness. Give the less experienced member of a crew the confidence to stand up and say ‘I don’t think this is a good idea because...’

If one journalist can be saved as a result of this, one member of a crew, one fixer or driver, then the cost of a hundred courses is worthwhile. Perhaps a thousand courses.

I would pay for those thousand courses myself to have my friend sitting over the table from me tonight.

Mike Charlton is a freelance cameraman

The Rory Peck Awards Brochure 2004

• Programme
• Why Freelancers Matter
• A Year of Growth...
• ...and Freelance Achievement
• From Sony
• The Overseas Project
• Reporting Iraq
• The Freelance World
  An Iraqi in Iraq
  An American in Iraq
  In Pakistan
  In Haiti
  In Zimbabwe
• Report on Safety Training Course
• Trauma can get stuck in the system
• For Roddy - and Helping Others

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