HEST
- Hostile Environment Safety Training -
Was set up by EBU
International Training in 2004. It is a course that fits with the
demanding work of journalists. Through a mix of hands-on exercises,
presentations, discussions and role plays, the reporters are trained
during four days on how to face danger and how to overcome the ensuing
risks. This course is for in-house as well as freelance reporters
who work for Radio and Television.
The concerns of female journalists have also been thought through.
We devoted a year and a half to develop HEST and it has now reached
maturity
with its fourth edition in 2004. Five courses are also planned for
2005.
EBU International Training gathered a team of war reporters from EBU
members,
journalists from the Eurovision special operations as well as safety
experts.
Together they identified 4 fundamental principles which laid the grounds
for the
HEST course.
1. The course should give journalists
the means to better evaluate the risks
they must run while working in war zones but should not turn them
into soldiers or doctors.
2. The course must be dynamic, interesting
and useful, and should concentrate on key aspects of security.
3. The journalists are put into real
time situations: they are confronted with danger while doing their
job. They must cover an event for their radio or television and
work under time pressure: Feed point
is at 6.00 pm.
4. The course should help reporters
to take the right decisions swiftly while managing huge stress.
An error of judgement can be fatal to their health, their safety
or even their life, and that of those who work with them.
HEST is a practical and realistic course recreating a war zone environment.
To sum up, it is undeniably the responsibility of Editors in chief
to provide their journalists with a good training if they are to be
sent as reporters in war zones and other hostile environments.
Figures speak for themselves as each year more and more media staff
are injured or die on the field.
© EBU International Training – Jan 2005
For further information contact:
Nathalie Labourdette
Head of EBU International Training
e-mail: Nathalie Labourdette
tel: 41 022 717 2146
