Keeping our Journalists Safe

Protesters try to resist the advance of riot police in Gezi park in Istanbul, Turkey. (Vadim Ghirda, File/AP)

A few weeks ago, CBC journalists DerekStoffel and Sasa Petricic were taken into custody by Turkish police. Ironically,it was a relatively quiet day during the ongoing anti-government protests inIstanbul, and the two of them were arrested while taking photographs of theremoval of barricades that had been used to contain the protesters.

We learned that something was amiss whenSasa tweeted "Arrested". What followed were several nerve-wracking hours forall of us. Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird quickly intervened on theirbehalf, and they were released, unharmed, later that evening.

What happened to Sasa and Derek isn't an everydayoccurrence (and it might not have happened at all if the first people toapproach them and ask them to stop taking photos had identified themselves asTurkish police officers), but they weren't unprepared for it.

It was the month-long kidnapping of one of ourother foreign correspondents, Mellissa Fung, in Afghanistan in 2008 which underscored the importance of safety and security trainingfor our journalists - and not just those working in hot spots half a worldaway.

Incorporating practices developed by otherbroadcasters like the BBC and CNN, we have formalized our procedures andpolicies for protecting the health and safety of our journalists in the field. Wealso hired a security expert - a former military officer - and embedded him inour national newsroom.

Working with him, we've established aHostile Environment Assignment Process. What that means is that during theassignment process, at the same time we determine the news value and treatmentof a potential story, we also examine the risks associated with covering it,largely based on where it's happening. We try to come up with a strategy toreduce those risks - bearing in mind we can't eliminate them, but certainlybring them down to a manageable level, if at all possible.

Our security expert's other main task is tooversee the training - and re-training - of our journalists who are working indangerous situations. Given the unpredictability of news, that could just aslikely be covering a flood in Western Canada or a riot in downtown Toronto, asit is an anti-government protest in Istanbul or Cairo or a war in the Middle East.

Our training approach is also based on riskassessment. All of our employees are encouraged to take/have taken a one-houronline Travel Awareness course. This prepares them for going into a situationthat poses a low or medium risk, or perhaps if they're travelling in or near adangerous zone, but not actively reporting.

We also have a Domestic Operations Course,a full-day session that prepares our journalists who may be asked to coversomething like the G20 protests in downtown Toronto, or a natural disaster such as a tornado, earthquake, flood or forest fire. While the riskof injury is somewhat lower for our domestic reporters, it's not insignificant.

Our most intensive course, one that Sasaand Derek and our other foreign correspondents have taken, is called SurvivingHostile Regions. It runs over four or five days, and participants get athree-day refresher every three years. They go through numerous scenarios -everything from being arrested by authorities or taken hostage in a civil war,to learning how to self-treat injuries or survive a lack of food and water. We make sure they have theirtravel documents and inoculations up to date, and we have their emergencycontact information in case we need to get in touch with family members ontheir behalf.

Some of this may sound over the top, butjournalism is far from a safe occupation these days. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, nearly onethousand journalists and media workers have been killed worldwide over the past20 years. As you might expect, Iraq is at the top of the list, with 151 deathsover that time, but countries you might not expect, like the Philippines andAlgeria, have proven to be more dangerous than places like Afghanistan andSyria.

The CPJ and the International News Safety Institute also note that agrowing number of freelance reporters, journalists who don't have the trainingand support of news organizations like the CBC, have been killed and takenhostage in recent years. And the majority of those killed, injured orimprisoned are covering stories in their own countries. In fact, Derek Stoffelmentioned that himself in an interview with CBC Toronto's morning show themorning after his release. He said he felt lucky to have been released soquickly, because there were numerous other journalists being held, and they hadno idea how long they'd remain behind bars.

We're relieved Derek and Sasa are safe, andwe share their concern for our colleagues in the news business who put theirlives at risk to bring important stories to you.