Making Safety Part of the Story
Updated: Sep 22
Safety training can have added value when it connects directly to the work journalists are doing and the communities they belong to.
This summer, ACOS partnerships brought safety training to 75 journalists, filmmakers and photographers through organizations that fund their projects, nurture their storytelling and support their professional networks. These collaborations help journalists to see safety as an integral part of their everyday working practices:
Solutions Storytelling Project: Africa | Video Consortium
In July, we worked with Video Consortium to create an online safety workshop for filmmakers selected for their 2026 Solutions Storytelling Project: Africa, which connects filmmakers with social innovators to produce short documentaries that catalyze positive change. This year's fellows - from from DRC, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda and South Africa - are producing documentaries investigating critical issues such as food security, gender based violence, the environment, healthcare, maternal health and HIV/AIDS.
We worked with VC - and with Sally Fitton, Senior Manager, Field Safety and Security at NPR - to create a ninety minute workshop that helped them understand the safety context of their stories, identify hazards, analyse risks. Sally also walked participants through safety management processes and helped them to develop their own action plans.
Joop Swart Masterclass | World Press Photo
Photographers selected for World Press Photo's Joop Swart Masterclass program benefit from a year of masterclasses, talks and mentorships focussed on story development and careers guidance. In recent years WPP has also worked with ACOS to include safety and self care.
Our workshop covered the fundamentals of safety planning - including the importance of mental health and trauma-informed practices - and the key essentials of good digital and physical safety. Participants were given resources, techniques and frameworks to help them apply what they learned to their own work, and offered a one to one safety clinic to discuss their own specific needs and situations.
Staying Safe in an Evolving Environment | IPAEA
In August, ACOS worked with safety and risk expert Ephraim Muchemi, and the International Press Association of East Africa, to offer a safety training workshop for their members.
The workshop, attended by 20 journalists, focussed on how to stay safe in evolving environments. It walked them through risk assessment, digital threat reduction and incident management.
Participants told us the workshop had changed the way that they approach safety.Asked what they would start, stop and keep doing, participants said they would start adopting more secure messaging and communication tools, start switching to safer browsers and move away from less private options. Many said they would also start tightening their personal safety protocols.
Find safety resources for journalists and editors here
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