How Do You Cover Stories in Conflict Zones? ‘Prepare, Prepare, Prepare’

At the front of the classroom, Columbia Journalism School Professor Judith Matloff clicked through a somber slideshow of 15 journalists killed, assaulted or seriously injured while doing their jobs.

First came James Foley, the freelance reporter recently beheaded by Islamic State militants in Syria, followed by Steven Sotloff, who met the same fate. Then there was Chris Hondros, a Getty photographer killed on assignment in Libya in 2011, and Marie Colvin, the reporter for the British \"Sunday Times\" who died covering the Syrian conflict in 2012. Last was Daniel Pearl, the \"Wall Street Journal \"reporter beheaded in Pakistan by al-Qaida terrorists in 2002.

“I’m going to frighten you,” Matloff, an adjunct professor of journalism, had warned students as she began the three-day workshop called Reporting Safely in Conflict Zones.

The workshop, one of several continuing education programs offered by Columbia’s Journalism School, is designed to show reporters, producers and photographers how to operate with caution in volatile situations. Students learn to assess risk, prevent rape and physical assault, and deal with trauma. A computer systems engineer provides instruction on how to safeguard sensitive communications and data, while emergency first-aid training is taught by a former National Guard combat medic.

“It’s about keeping journalists alive,” says Bruce Shapiro, senior executive director for professional programs at the Journalism School and executive director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. “Every journalism school should be doing this.” Shapiro teaches the portion of the workshop on trauma, which includes recognizing and getting help for post-traumatic stress.

Some 40 journalists have been killed worldwide so far this year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, and more than 200 were imprisoned at the end of last year.

Some of those who were killed discounted the risks they were taking, Matloff says. Some disclosed their location on social media. Others returned to places where they had been in danger before or ventured into areas where they were likely to be shot.

“You have to be honest with yourself,” Matloff tells the 16 journalists in the class. “Is the story worth the risk?” Before a dangerous assignment, she adds, it’s wise to have a backup plan, write a will and make sure your financial affairs are in order.

Matloff came to Columbia in 2002 after working as a foreign correspondent in Latin America, Africa and Russia for \"Reuters\" and the \"Christian Science Monitor\" In 2003, she began teaching a semester-long course on covering conflict for Journalism students, and created the continuing education workshop for working journalists in 2011. “I saw a real need,” she says, recalling colleagues killed in the early 1990s while covering the end of apartheid in South Africa. “We had no guidelines, no protocols. We had flak jackets but nobody wore them.”

Now there are waiting lists for both. “We want journalists to be able to do their jobs in the safest possible way, to be aware of the dangers and what they can do to avoid harm,” says Ernest R. Sotomayor, the Journalism school’s dean of student affairs. “We view it as a public service.”

As news organizations cut costs by closing foreign bureaus, they depend more on freelancers, many of whom have little or no training when they venture into conflict zones. Private companies often charge several thousand dollars for “hostile environment training.”

Tuition for Matloff’s workshop is $775, and freelancers are eligible for financial assistance from the Rory Peck Trust, a London-based organization set up in memory of Peck, a freelance cameraman killed in Moscow in 1993. About half the participants are freelancers.

They come from all over the globe, attracted by Columbia’s reputation and the opportunity to learn from someone who has covered conflict herself. This fall’s group included a Swedish journalist who has reported in Afghanistan and Iraq, a Peruvian television reporter who covered unrest in Latin America and a Canadian American freelancer based in Beirut.

“When I went to Mali and Egypt, I realized I had no training for the situations I was in,” said Anelise Borges, a Paris-based television news producer for France 24. “I wanted this kind of training.”

The workshop is useful for covering other stories besides war, terrorism and political unrest. Journalists can also find themselves in danger when reporting on earthquakes and hurricanes, or gang violence and the drug trade.

The first-aid training includes instruction in how to stop bleeding and safely drag an injured colleague out of a dangerous area. On a recent Saturday, participants practiced these skills on the lawn outside Pulitzer Hall, some of them covered with fake blood, others acting as rescuers. A week before the first Ebola case was reported in New York City, Sawyer Alberi, the medical trainer, also discussed how journalists covering the virus must have “an abundance of caution” but not succumb to panic.

“Think about the worst thing that can happen,” says Matloff. “Prepare, prepare, prepare. The better prepared you are, the less likely you are to get into these situations.”

By the end of the first day Tristan Ahtone, a freelance multimedia journalist from Albuquerque, N.M., had a strategy. “My goal is not to be in your slideshow,” he told Matloff.

— By Georgette Jasen