"What should be considered 'adequate' preparation and support for journalists and media workers in difficult, remote and hostile environments? One would assume there would be numerous sources of feedback and contributions measuring the suitability of the training, as well as providing information re
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garding what improvements are necessary to ensure journalists are provided the best possible pre-deployment preparation. However, after working and observing developments in this area over several years, three main issues have presented themselves. First, there is little investigation or analysis being conducted into these training programmes. Second, there are few independent organisations working to standardise the training and support provided to journalists. Finally, the extent of training and support to the local correspondents, fixers and stringers in developing countries, that most international media organisation depend on in these locations, has become an unfortunate casualty of shrinking international news budgets." (Abstract)
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"Employees working in television newsrooms are exposed to video footage of violent events on a daily basis. It is yet unknown whether they subsequently develop symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder as has been shown for other populations exposed to trauma through television. We conducted an inte
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rnet-based survey with 81 employees. Nearly 80% of the sample reported being familiar with recurring intrusive memories. However, the sample's overall posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms were low, although participants with a prior trauma, more general work stress, and a greater exposure to footage had a tendency to show more severe symptoms. Regarding general mental health, there were no differences compared with a journalistic control group. Results suggest that the population as such is not at a particular risk of developing mental problems." (Abstract)
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"Reporting on wars has always been a risky business for journalists. But news organisations have transformed their approach to safety in recent years by ensuring that all their staff sent to the front line have as much training as possible to minimise their chances of becoming victims of the conflic
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t they are covering. Despite that, and the virtual industry that has grown up around risk assessment, individual journalists on the ground will go on taking decisions that place them in danger, writes Nick Pollard, the former head of Sky News." (Abstract)
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"Iraq has proven to be a particularly hazardous posting for journalists. More media workers have been killed there than during the two-decades-long war in Vietnam. And 15 have died at the hands of American forces." (Introduction)
"The notion of survival skills and safety guidelines has been slow to catch on with top media managers in the United States. In Europe, the BBC, ITN and Reuters mandate training for foreign correspondents. It has taken an era of international terrorism to spark a stronger push on the home front." (A
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bstract)
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"The hard-hitting autobiography of the renowned, high profile TV investigator. In twenty-five years of investigative reporting Roger Cook has been knocked unconscious a dozen times, hospitalized on almost thirty occasions, and has had twenty-three bones broken by those who have resented his ruthless
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persistence – or just objected to the fact that he exists at all. He was born 6 April 1943 in New Zealand. His father – a timid man afraid of attack from Japanese submarines rumoured to have been sighted in Auckland harbour – soon found refuge and a new start for his family in Sydney, Australia. If anything was going to prepare Roger Cook for what he was to become, it was growing up in the Australia of the 1950s – a melting-pot of different nationalities, scarred by the war, and with an unsophisticated and sometimes brutal education system. After school and college he found his broadcasting feet at a Sydney commercial radion station, moving on to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He then emigrated to Britain to tackle BBC radio, where he prospered at ‘The World At One’. His brainchild, however, was ‘Checkpoint’, which became the most popular programme on Radio 4 after ‘Today’. During its twelve-year run, Cook and his team exposed a breadth of institutional incompetencies, bad law, injustices and naked criminality. The result was a series of awards for good journalism, significant changes in legislation, and the arrest and conviction of countless fraudsters and strong-arm villains. For his pains, Cook earned the sobriquet of ‘The Most Beaten-up Journalist in Britain’. Eventually he transferred the idea to television, where for twelve years ‘The Cook Report’ flourished. Organised crime, drug-smuggling, pornography, animal cruelty, the IRA. Cook has attacked them all in search of justice – and won. Published to coinincide with ‘Cook Report’ TV specials in June, August, October and December, Dangerous Ground is his breathtaking story." (Abstract)
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