An all-round safety training course for journalists reporting live in times of trouble

As a journalist, you need to be well equipped physically and mentally to face potential dangers when reporting in unsafe and unpredictable situations.

You will acquire the tools and knowledge needed to assess danger in war zones, areas of civil unrest and also urban uprisings, humanitarian crises, terrorist attacks as well as natural disasters.

HEST addresses your questions on safety, trauma and stress while you prepare stories under simulated hostile environments, in both rural and urban settings.

Target audience 

What outcome for you 

Course structure 

Day 1: Foundation

Lectures on: 

• Situation awareness and personal security (physical integrity and possessions) illustrated with real-life scenarios. 
• Planning and preparing a story (including risk assessment, sourcing local intelligence, assessing local contacts). 
• Basic life-support course (breathing, gunshot wounds, control of bleeding, burns, shock). 
• Avoiding kidnap, surviving abduction: how to survive in captivity. 
• Stress management / Post-traumatic stress disorder. 

Day 2: Urban

Focus on practical training in civil disturbances. 

Participants will have to identify, film/record, edit and feed a story while facing the following challenges: 

• Ballistics awareness and selecting protective cover. 
• Conflict management and defusing confrontation. 
• Civil disturbance and riots; working securely in crowds. 
• Negotiating urban checkpoints (by vehicle and on foot). 
• Car bombs, blast injuries and stabbing. 

Day 3: Rural

Focus on practical training in a conflict environment. 

Participants will have to identify, film/record, edit and feed a story while facing the following challenges: 

• Mine, booby-trap and improvized explosive devices. 
• Checkpoints (illegal, militia, conventional forces): techniques for negotiating safe passage and identifying early escalating dangers. 
• Reacting under fire, surviving ambush and use of ground. 

Day 4: Consolidation

Techniques consolidated with discussion and further practice: 

Practical exercise in an integrated rural/urban scenario. 

• Navigation (astral, map and compass, GPS, survival navigation techniques). 
• Intermediate life-support instruction, complementing basic course from Day1. 
• Discussion of team and personal issues raised during the course. 

Trainer team 

Objective Teamis our partner on all EBU Safety training courses.

The team includes:
Former senior officers, trainers and operators from the British Special Forces, front-line media professionals, specialists in technical and IT security and medial experts.

Registration fee

EBU Members and freelancers sponsored by a member: 3200 Euros/pers. 

Non-members: 4750 Euros/pers.

The fee includes all course material, meals, accommodation and transfer from/to the airport. It does not include international travel expenses. 

An invoice will be issued and sent to you to the above mentioned address unless specified otherwise. Payment is due upon receipt of invoice by bank transfer to the account mentioned on the invoice. Cancellations will not be refunded but we will be pleased to welcome an alternative delegate.