A glimpse into the world of a war correspondent - but how did Journalism.co.uk fare?

Watch Journalism.co.uk's editor Laura Oliver tackle life as a reporter in a 'hostile' environment, while founder of Future Voices, Chris Green, talks us through the difficulties students will face.



Words by Laura Oliver and video by Rachel McAthy.

"Imagine getting into a Land Rover, in 40-degree heat with all your kit and that on," veteran conflict journalist Terry Friel told me as I tightened the velcro on my flak jacket. "Now imagine getting out when something happens to you."

I couldn't imagine it then and there - but after a day spent on a 2,000-acre private estate in the Hampshire countryside wearing the thing, I began to get the picture.

Friel, whose experience in the field covers Cambodia, Sri Lanka, East Timor and as a former Reuters bureau chief in Afghanistan, is just one part of the Future Voices team. Set up by two journalism students, the organisation is aimed at improving safety standards and awareness for journalists working in remote or developing countries, war zones or areas of conflict or crises.

Led by Chris Green, Future Voices will offer training to journalists and students, assist the development of new kit for journalists working in these environments and push for greater levels of editorial safety in the industry as a whole, he tells Journalism.co.uk.

Green is still a journalism undergraduate at the University of the Creative Arts, but has interrupted his studies to develop Future Voices. Using money from his photography work for local newspapers and his full student loan, he set up the company and with the support of the West Britain newspaper developed some initial overseas training in Iraq with a domestic news agency in 2008.

"I got in touch with various people in higher parts of news and safety organisations - I put it to them that rather than going around the world and finding donor organisations to fund training both in the UK and overseas, why don't we tie in industry products, such as cameras, body armour for camera crews, containerised media solutions for use in Haiti?" says Green.

"We started putting together a safety course which took the editorial aspect and pushed it seamlessly into the safety aspect. Realising that journalists do sometimes have to take risks (…) it's focused on what those risks are and how to still get your story out."

The training courses currently on offer in the UK are four-day, intensive programmes: three-days on the estate in Hampshire covering everything from first aid, threats of abduction and kidnap to negotiating an embedded situation with foreign or British troops, as well as all the practicalities of trying to send their story from a remote location. The final day is a 24-hour scenario, where participants are sent into a simulated environment – in this case simulated with the help of safety organisations, the army and experience foreign correspondents – where they must make their own practical and ethical decisions for survival and getting their story filed.

"We're working with 30 multinational companies who support us at CEO-level and we've got equipment like trucks, satellite systems - everything you'd imagine you'd have as a BBC foreign correspondent in Afghanistan, we've got to show the next generation of journalists what is there for them if the need that sort of help and equipment. But we also do it from the freelance perspective, as in 'this is how you need to work and survive and deal with the consequences as they come up'," explains Green.

"We simulate an environment so that students aren't comfortable from day one. Our thought behind this is why have a course that's relevant to journalists working in developing or remote countries possibly in war or severe civil crisis situations and put the journalists up in a three or four star hotel and? We've got help from the defence industry and the army to help recreate a realistic environment so that when people turn up to our courses they'd get what they'd get overseas."

Green has secured funding to run a series of free courses over the summer months (more details of this are available at this link) and is also working on a bigger package to run training in Afghanistan for journalists.

Support from manufacturers, the defence and safety industries is key to the project and Green wants to secure support from the right people to make as much of the training and equipment as possible freely available. New technology and kit that would improve journalists' work and safety in these situations is a big part of the company and while some of this gear could be sold on to provide funding for more training courses, Green is keen to offer it free to journalists from developing countries.

Just as journalists taking on this kind of work need to refresh their training, so the industry needs to update its attitude to editorial safety in light of multimedia changes and the emergence of "street journalism", says Green.

"You've got a lot of people who are delivering perhaps 40 per cent of the content you see who are not journalists and there's nothing available for them in terms of news safety, editorial safety awareness and that's something that needs addressing because they are the new reporters. Everyone says send us your footage and we'll put it on TV. Great, well if you're getting them to send stuff to you you've got a duty of care to them. That's not being addressed because obviously that costs money," he says.

The new desire for multimedia reports and journalists poses new challenges to the journalist in a risky environment: journalists need to understand the different threats associated with each medium and have an awareness of the ethical and cultural issues at stake he adds.

"It's the only course currently available that gives required, up-to-date as of yesterday information about what's going on in the world. It's about as relevant for people in this country covering a riot as it is for people going away. All of the skills learned are life skills and the media skills side of it, how to hold a camera properly for example, considerations that you have to undertake to use the equipment properly are taken into account as well. It's workflow as well as safety," says Green.

It's "pretty full on" according to Green - video of Journalism.co.uk on the course's open day can testify to this and back up our editorial team's suspicions that working in conflict zones may not be for us. But once more Friel's knowledge of the field shows up: "We want to, within reason, scare those on the course. We want them to make their mistakes here and realise that they're not invincible or that it's not for them - after all I'd rather they find that out here."

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