FMC Fast Chat: An Inside Look at the Growing Dangers Journalists Face Around the Globe

Take a listen to this Fast Chat and get an inside look at the dangers journalists around the globe are facing simply for doing their jobs. Our guest is Colin Pereira, the chief safety strategist for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

FMC Fast Chat takes you inside the news so you can be in the know in 30 minutes. Hosted by Fair Media Council CEO and Executive Director Jaci Clement, Fast Chat features notables in news, media, and business.

For more than 15 years, he has worked to shape the risk management model for journalists operating under threat. He has advised teams of journalists covering wars, natural disasters, terrorism, and riots globally, and has worked on high-risk investigations. And before he became the Safety Guy, Colin was also an award-winning journalist for BBC Newsnight and BBC Current Affairs. So Colin, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you very much for having me, Jacqui.

What are the most dangerous places for journalists to work today?

Well, today exactly, there's been a lot of violence in Israel and Gaza, and I know a number of journalists have been injured covering protests in Jerusalem. But generally speaking, we've seen an uptick in a lot of oppression of journalists in Myanmar. I believe there are about 48 journalists who are currently incarcerated. and another 50 who have had to flee the country. And in Afghanistan, with the American pullout, we're seeing a lot of pressure on Afghan journalists as well. And just today, just on May 2nd, another journalist was killed in Mexico, in Sonora. So, um, it's pretty global around the world. Journalists are under pressure in a number of countries.

And is there any one factor contributing to that now?

Well, in the countries I've just mentioned, it's specific geopolitics going on in those specific areas. I think what we're going to see is a lot of protests in a number of countries to do with the lockdowns and the economic situation following COVID. And sorry, I should have also mentioned in India, actually, probably the most dangerous country to be a journalist right now is India. I believe 50 journalists have been killed from COVID alone, not to mention the oppression and the difficulties of reporting there.

Geez.

So, you know, I think, yes, the problems for journalists this year will definitely be COVID-related, as there are a number of protests going on.

Okay, and has COVID actually changed the risk management model that you work with for journalists?

Um, to a certain degree, yes. I mean, it's obviously brought things a lot more in, uh, a lot more tension involved, um, but I would say the practices of newsrooms have changed dramatically. You know, mature newsrooms that were used to having journalists in the office, like everyone else, we've had to start working remotely. That's brought a lot of complications to it. And a lot of support staff have had to go home, and frontline staff have had to keep going. And we've had to keep reporting the news. So we have never stopped. We've had presenters reporting from their homes. And at the same time, we've had staff going into mortuaries, old age homes, hospitals, really reporting from the COVID front lines every day since the pandemic began. So it's, it's been tough, and I think from a mental health perspective, it's been very draining on the journalist fraternity around the world.

Tell us a little bit about how you assist the reporters dealing with these kinds of issues.

So I wear 2 hats. I'm primarily here as the Committee to Protect Journalists, and I'm part of the emergencies team which basically we were set up post-events in Syria with a number of journalists being abducted and killed during the civil war. And our primary role is to help local journalists and freelancers who cannot get access to the kind of safety advice that is available to staff journalists. And the reason why the committee hired me is I work with a number of news organizations As a consultant, I support their journalists as they go into high-risk locations and work on investigations. And what we really do for news organizations is we build the infrastructure by which they manage the risk. So we write the policies, the protocols, but more importantly, we train the staff, we train the managers, and we create the culture by which they manage the safety of all deployments. And basically, that's what the CPJ wants to offer freelancers and local journalists. So they subsidize that, essentially.

Okay. And without this service, though, I imagine there would be less journalists covering dangerous places around the globe.

Um, I don't know if that's the case, actually. I think there would be probably the same amount of journalists covering stories, if not more, if I'm honest with you, because they probably wouldn't really think about the risks to a certain degree. You know, what we've seen in the last, well, since the advent of the mobile phone is we've seen an explosion in citizen journalism. And we've seen a transformation by which the news machine works, which is previously, when I say previously, about 20 years ago, you had to send your own team to film, record, report on whatever was going on. Now, and, you know, speed was essential. Speed is still essential, but you will not be the first people there. There will be some local chap or girl, or girl, woman, I should say.

Yeah.

say, who's filming this on their phone, and that's the first footage that comes out, and international newsrooms have to corroborate that information first. And we have a duty of care to those people who are gathering news for us as citizen journalists as well. We don't want to put them in danger, and so we try not to encourage any unsafe practices. But going back to your original question, would there be more or less journalists?

I don't know.

I think it would be the same, but they would probably be operating without a safety blanket or a safety net.

All right. Can you give us some examples of what a typical day is like for you? What kind of threats do you deal with that are the most common? And then what are the most extreme?

So in the last few years, I would say the threat we're dealing a lot with is intimidation from either governments or, um, or factions within a country. Um, and intimidation of individual journalists and, you know, seeing them as legitimate targets on the battlefield.

Okay.

So, I mean, I'll give you an example of today. What have we done today? So today, we had to write a safety advisory for Colombia because there are protests going on there, and there have been, I can't remember the exact number, but there have been a huge number of injuries of journalists covering the protests over the last few weeks. and days since April 28th, I think there have been massive protests. We then moved back to Gaza. When I say we moved back to Gaza, this is because of the time zone I'm in. I'm in Portugal, so I should have started the day with Gaza, but I actually started with Colombia, weirdly. So we then moved back to Gaza. There have been airstrikes in Gaza, 27 people killed, reporters going in. This is on top of the protests in Jerusalem, invasion of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Number of journalists injured there. And then my day moved on to Afghanistan, where we have one of our clients, the reporters are reporting from a remote part of the country, and they wanted to do a road journey. And we had to have a discussion about whether it was safe or not. And yeah, so, and in between then, I've also dealt with Pakistan and several evacuations of Burma. So it's— It's a full-on job. And I've also had a number of journalists who are— well, one of the huge parts of our jobs is now online trolling and online abuse and the fallout of that and when it manifests itself as a physical threat. And underpinning all of this is the mental health piece, because all of this puts enormous pressures on our newsroom's mental health.

Okay, back up one second here. How do you actually keep tabs on journalists on the ground? Are they in constant contact in terms of checking in to let you know they're safe, or how does that work?

So in my role supporting newsrooms, the newsrooms will keep— it depends on the story and the risk level, to be honest with you. So certain of our clients, they will have journalists operating in high-risk locations, and we will be in constant contact with them. When I say we, that's— I run a team of people who support them. So we will be tracking them, monitoring them, speaking to them on a regular basis. But mostly we devolve that to the actual individual newsroom. And every newsroom has a different sort of check-in cadence, but they will invariably check in with their people at least twice or 3 times a day, depending on the level of risk and where they're at. For the journalists who the CPJ is responsible for, It's a much looser relationship, quite frankly. They don't have to take our advice. They come to us, you know, we volunteer our advice and they can decide to use it or not. And they can decide to engage with us when and how they want to. So they don't actually have to speak to us at all when they're out in the field. So we try— it's a much less regimented relationship, which has drawbacks in terms of safety, quite frankly.

Okay, but are these journalists more experienced, so they're less likely to come to you on a consistent basis because they already know what they're about to encounter?

The freelancers?

Mm-hmm.

I would say it's a very mixed bag. There are some freelancers who are incredibly experienced and at the top of the game and really excellent journalists, and they understand the risks intimately. There are other very young journalists who have just come out of universities or J-schools and are going out into the world for the first time, experiencing things for the first time. So last year during the Black Lives Matter protests, for example, we had— our workload was immense because we had journalists who had never ever covered anything hostile, never anticipated seeing anything hostile really. And suddenly they had a protest on their doorstep that they were covering in some way or other. And many of them were extremely passionate about it. And that experience of what happened last year in America, I think reverberates around the world. We have local journalists who are covering their local news story, and it's very close to home for them. And sometimes they don't necessarily think about the risks first. They think about how I'm gonna— how they're gonna get the story out and how they're gonna shine a spotlight on corruption or malpractice or, um, some sort of malicious behavior, and it comes at a cost.

Okay. All right. What, what would you say is the basic advice you find yourself giving journalists out in the field?

Um, I mean, that's a very broad-ranging question, Jacqui. Um, I think today when journalists come to us for the first time, generally what I say to them is start by cleaning up your digital footprint.

Okay.

You know, if someone wants to attack you, that's how they're going to find out about you. That's how they're going to start the conflict against you. And we are very much in the firing line. And, you know, what's happening at the moment is You, we, you know, we're involved in this sort of, people have called it a cultural, cultural war. Um, but it's effectively a, uh, a, you know, schism between different narratives and the people who have a different narrative from the mainstream journalists, they will attack journalists on a personal level and they will, um, first try and discredit them, um, as, purveyors of truth, and they will try and say they are liars, and they are lying to you. Then they will cross the boundary. If the shaming is not working, they will start then making intimidatory threats, and in the worst cases, results in physical threats. We have huge numbers of doxxing, swatting. I do not know if you know what these terms are, but doxxing is when someone releases your personal details online. So your home address, the address of your mother, the address of your loved ones, and says, you know, we're not doing anything with this information. Sorry, let me just decline that phone call. We're not doing anything with this information. As in, we're not saying that you should do anything violent against this person, but here's their home address. You do with that what you will, and we'll just put it out there on Twitter.

Mm-hmm.

Swatting is much more virulent. Swatting is when someone phones up the police and says, you know, I'm outside Jaci Clement's house, and I can hear a lot of screaming, and I can hear her husband saying, don't stab me with that knife. And before you know it, the police are bursting in your door. And, you know, you're handcuffed and manacled on the floor, and you've got an explanation job there. And that happens quite often.

Okay.

So these are the kinds of tactics that are being deployed against journalists on a daily basis across the world. There are troll armies that you can hire to do this if you are an authoritarian regime. And so the risk has really moved from the battlefield to the domestic home.

Okay, and social media plays a great role in this.

Absolutely. I think when Facebook, Twitter, social media first came out, journalists, I remember those days, we were told, I remember those days, less than, just over a decade ago, I'm talking like it was sort of the dark ages. You know, we were told, get on these platforms, connect with your audiences, link with people, chat to them, engage in conversations with them. And unfortunately, not all those people mean us well, and they come after us. And you've seen a lot of journalists who want to remove themselves from those platforms. Now. So yeah, social media is a battlefield for us.

What were the biggest risk factors before we had the technology in place?

Well, I mean, I think it's always been dangerous to be a journalist. You know, you're all— as one of my colleagues says, you know, journalists, our job is to get up into people's faces and ask them the questions that they don't want asked.

Okay.

And those people who you're asking difficult questions of, they often punch back. So I think on a, you know, when you're dealing with corruption, when you're dealing with criminals, when you're dealing with people who don't want you asking those tough questions, there's always a risk. And I think from the early days of journalism, that's always been the case. But I think definitely since I've been in the game, there was a perception that risk was for war.

Yeah.

Journalists who went off on foreign assignments, went to war zones, they were at risk. And they were worried about their fixers and their local producers who were at risk from warlords and the Taliban. But you came home and all was fine and you were welcomed at the airport and everyone respected you for what you did. I, you know, and this is what's happened. The value of journalism is lessened. And there's a lot of questions on journalists about, are you telling the truth? And this, the automatic assumption that we are purveyors of truth is just no longer there. And there are some people who think we lie all the time. And, you know, some journalists have to really answer that because they do put out news that is not real, and they tarnish the other journalists who— well, when I say they put out news that's not real, they put out sensationalism journalism, they put out journalism that is questionable, I would say, and it does tarnish the more reputable brands, I think.

How many journalists do you work with?

So I would say the constituency of the CPJ is in the thousands.

Yeah.

Tens of thousands of journalists. The people who actually filtered down to me as an individual or on the emergencies team, I think we dealt with several hundred journalists directly. We had face-to-face interactions with— or sorry, not face-to-face interactions, but, you know, direct communications with journalists, hundreds of journalists last year. I can't give you the exact number. But yeah, several hundred.

Some of what you do, though, is actually focused on getting a journalist from point A to point B safely, right?

In terms of evacuation and relocation, yes, absolutely. The CPJ, yeah. The emergencies team has, um, at any one time, I'd say, you know, several tens of journalists who are asking for relocation from the countries that they're in. Um, and over the course of the years, it will be hundreds. Um, like I say, at the moment, We haven't been directly involved with this, but we've helped a number of journalists either financially or directly leave Burma because they're fearing their lives. About 2 years ago, we helped 70 journalists leave Syria and be relocated to different countries around the world. So yeah, absolutely. It just depends on the circumstances and where we can get them to so they can be safe and the longevity of their stay. Sometimes journalists can be moved out for a short period of time while the risk reduces, you know, when we're talking a matter of weeks. Other times it has to be years.

Okay, but I imagine you, you get into situations where they have to be removed very quickly.

Yes, absolutely. Um, yeah, there are some journalists who have to go, you know, the threat comes in in the morning and by the evening they have to leave.

Your typical day is rather unpredictable then.

It can be. My wife gets very upset with me when she's saying, you know, sit down to dinner, and I'm going, no, I've just got to send one more message on the phone.

And it's important, right?

Yeah, this one's really important. She said, you said that last night.

How did you become interested in journalism safety?

Actually, my intro is kind of misleading. I got into journalism safety and then got into journalism. But the reason I got into journalism safety is because I wanted to be a journalist, and I couldn't I was terribly lazy at university, never did a stroke of work. But I studied terrorism, actually, international relations with a focus on terrorism in St. Andrews in Scotland. I picked various courses that focused on the Middle East and in particular, Islamic fundamentalism. When I came out of university, I could not get a job. I did not look very hard, to my parents' chagrin, to be honest with you.

Okay.

And then 9/11 happened. And basically the BBC started setting up a security team. And at the time I was applying to the BBC every week for a job, literally from dishwasher up to director general, which is effectively the CEO. So any job that came up, I would send in an application form and say, I'm perfectly suited for this job. I'm brilliant. And I went to some dreadful interviews where I was not really perfectly suited for the job at all.

Hmm.

But this job came up on the security team as an analyst, and I applied and got it, and then went to work in the team, working in different newsrooms. And the goal was always to become a journalist. I thought, I'll do this for 6 months, and then they'll realize I'm a genius, and they'll put me on the evening news.

Okay.

Sadly, that never happened. Clearly, my journalism skills are flawed, but I did get to be a producer for BBC Current Affairs, Radio Current Affairs, and Newsnight. and travel the world and report on various investigations for them.

But now it seems like you, you've quite settled into your role, and journalism safety actually seems to be a growing issue, and I guess more respected now as a real career, as opposed to maybe something that just happens when war breaks out.

Yeah, absolutely. Before, um, you know, the turn of the century, I think journalism safety was an ex-military individual who advised an organization when they were going into the battle, battle space, and it was quite informal. Now, pretty much every news organization has a team. They have corporate security teams, they have digital security teams. Depending on the size of the organization, they have a flotilla of security people and safety people supporting them. Um, but, you know, and, but there are still a lot of organizations that don't have anyone.

What would be a very small instance where you've helped out versus something on a larger scale? Just something to kind of put a face on the issues that you deal with.

Um, so we, uh, so you mean an individual journalist or, um, as in—

Or a particular instance that maybe pops up, um, pretty commonly, just to give us an idea of what your work really entails.

Okay, so, I mean, I'm trying to think of not live cases. Recently we worked with a production house who was— they were commissioned to make a film for a big broadcaster here in the UK. Sorry, I say here in the UK, I'm actually in Portugal, but here in Europe. And the far right in the UK came after them because the investigation was on the far right, and they started doing this thing, doxxing, where they posted information about the production house, told them— told on Twitter where the production house was and how to get there. And we had to, one, just reassure the staff about the level of threats, but also work with Twitter and the authorities to get that taken down and make the journalists feel safe. that were in the production house. That was a very small production house, but they had several other programs going on, and there were staff who had nothing to do with the investigation that, you know, were feeling very insecure.

Okay.

So that's on quite a small sort of organizational level, but I deal with individual journalists all the time who are in trouble.

Okay, and how is it to deal with Twitter in terms of cases like this where you're actually going to them and asking them to remove information? Because, you know, that's topical today with what Facebook is going through and what Twitter has been going through. through in different cases of either telling people they can't say what they just said, or removing them, or placing a temporary ban on them. So if you go to Twitter and, and say this is an instance of doxxing, how quickly do they respond to that?

So if you are just a member of the public and you say that to Twitter or Facebook, I think you go through the standards complaint procedure, which takes a long time and is quite difficult to crack.

Mm-hmm.

What I would say is they are aware that they are— they have problems and they have issues. And so they have set up various mechanisms by which key organizations can appeal to them. And they're, and they're very receptive to that when, when they believe this to be a genuine case. But it still goes through their, their protocols. And if they don't agree with what we're saying, they won't just take it down. as a matter of course because we are asking. They will, you know, there is a rigor to their process. So they're more amenable, but I wouldn't say that they automatically do it.

Okay. Have you had any instances where they declined to do it?

I think we've had a couple, but I think the threat level was also quite low. Okay.

And I'm sorry, I interrupted you. So you gave me an instance of a very small particular item that you would work with. Can you give me an example of maybe something larger or maybe a higher threat?

Well, with my CPJ hat on, I mean, we've basically been dealing with the pandemic and we have put out, you know, a plethora of information and guidance. In the beginning, it was way too long and bloated, but we didn't really know much about the virus. And since then, we've honed it and we've made it much more useful to journalists. And I would say that information has— I may be wrong about this, but this is one of the most viewed pieces of information in the history of the CPJ.

Okay.

But it's also something that newsrooms around the world tell us they find is very useful, and they're asking us to run workshops and work with them to keep people safe. And so, for example, right now in India, people are asking us to help them, connect them to experts, and work with them to— for Indian journalists to understand what the risks are.

And a few times you've brought up the mental health issues that journalism— journalists are facing, in particular with COVID now, of how taxing it is. Is there anything in particular that you're doing that addresses those issues?

Yeah, so this has been a massive piece for for journalists in the last 10 years, I think. I mean, we always kind of knew that there was a mental health concern about our crews going off to war zones.

Mm-hmm.

And we set up various mechanisms to support them, but they were limited. They essentially only supported those people who were in the war zones and perhaps their immediate loved ones. In more recent times with the digital threats, we've recognized that that threat can manifest itself across anyone in the organization, not just in the newsroom. And during the pandemic, we have again recognized the mental health issue is societal, not just, you know, specific to journalists, but we are really at the sharp end, I think. And, you know, obviously doctors and first responders are much more at the sharp end than journalists. But, you know, we've had members of my team have been into hospitals at the height of the pandemic, when we didn't really know what the risks were, having to don PPE, all of those kinds of things. So the risk is, you know, the risk is there for us, it's real. And we've just had to keep making the news every day. Every day, we've had to put out 3 bulletins, if not more, because everyone's sitting at home watching TV, they're consuming the content. And that's been quite draining for the journalist fraternity worldwide, I think.

Okay. So what's the next step on that then?

Um, I wish I had an answer, Jacqui. I'm hoping it's a vaccine rollout across the world. I'm wishing it's going back to normal. But the truth is this, that, um, you know, we sit in countries where we are very fortunate to have a vaccine rollout. Um, the vast majority of the world, I don't know if they'll ever be vaccinated. And we will have to report on those areas where, um, COVID remains a problem for a number of years to come. And the death cases, the numbers of deaths continue to rise. So if you look at India, are we going to see that replicated in other places where they do not have the healthcare systems to support them, support the people? So I think we are very fortunate, but my journalists who I work with, they are going to have to keep— this is a story that is just going to run and run. for years to come.

Now, you deal with a lot of heavy issues constantly, though. So what keeps you going?

I love it, to be honest with you. I'm very passionate about it. I believe in the journalism that we do. I love to be involved in good reporting. And, you know, telling— I grew up in Africa. And I grew up in a country where you weren't allowed to say things. You know, you couldn't comment on politics, You couldn't comment on, um, what politicians did. You couldn't comment on corruption. You couldn't comment on the military. I grew up listening to the BBC World Service, and it was the voice of truth when no one else around was allowed to say anything. So I firmly believe in what we do, and I think we make a difference to people's lives. And I think in the pandemic, that's never been more true.

One last question. We need to wrap up because it's already been 30 minutes.

Oh, wow, sorry, that's flown by.

Our final question, it's a standard Fast Chat question, which is, what's the best part about being Colin Pereira?

It's— I don't know. I work— well, I've got an amazing family. I've got amazing kids, amazing wife. And I'm, you know, that's probably the best part about being Colin Pereira. But I work in a very fast-paced job. The content of my job is fascinating. And it changes every day. Every day I have something new to work on, and I feel we make a difference to people's lives. I think when we were doing the research for this call, I was telling you this story about this journalist in Nicaragua. So there's a young lady in Nicaragua, her name is Kalua Salazar. She is working in a community radio station. She basically is uncovering what goes on in her community, and politicians don't like it. And the police have parked outside her house every day for a number of weeks, if not months now. They bully, harass her. The other day, they strangled her while they were trying to get to her phone. And she has to walk her 3 little daughters who are under the age of 10 to school every day. And the police abuse her in front of her daughters. And it's a very insecure—

lifestyle.

She's reached out to us at the CPJ to help her, and we are doing our utmost to help her. You asked me what the best part of my job is. It's basically helping people like that who, you know, are doing a fantastic job for their communities, but they're in trouble and they need our help, and we are able— we try our best to help them and help them when we have to. The Fair Media Council is a 501 nonprofit organization advocating for quality news and working to create a media This podcast is a part of the C-Suite Radio Network. For more top business podcasts, visit c-suiteradio.org. This podcast is a part of the C-Suite Radio Network. For more top business podcasts, visit c-suiteradio.org. DashSweetRadio.com.