For the third year running, the ACOS Alliance delivered a series of safety events at April's International Journalism Festival in Perugia in collaboration with signatories and partners. The festival has grown to become Europe's largest media event, bringing together journalists, editors, media and tech organizations, funders, NGOs and students from all over the world across five days of discussions and events.
Practical Safety Guidance
This year, at the festival's Hotel La Rosetta, ACOS hosted 30 tailored, one to one Safety Clinics for journalists and editors, matching each participant with a safety advisor specific to their needs. Organised in partnership with Committee to Protect Journalists, the Rory Peck Trust and with the participation of safety experts from leading media and journalism safety organizations (listed at the bottom of his page), the clinics covered all aspects of safety from risk assessment and assignment preparation, to digital security and surveillance, online harassment, legal safety, mental health, and guidance around newsroom safety protocols and practices.
Psychological Safety 101: A Workshop for Journalists and Editors
On Saturday 20 April a full room of journalists and editors strengthened their mental health resilience in our Psychological Safety Workshop led by NYU's Lauren Walsh and Juliana Ruhfus and Gavin Rees from Dart Center Europe. This very practical workshop - the first of its kind to run at the festival - provided participants with a range of tools to strengthen their psychological safety and build resilience, including useful tips for understanding and talking about emotional wellbeing, and evidence-based strategies for self-care when exposed to traumatic stress, graphic content, situations of anxiety or burnout, or in preparation for potentially difficult assignments.
Watch our safety panels
Our two panels focused on the basics of safety preparation, and the ways in which three very different newsrooms - The Texas Tribune, El Confidencial and Bellingcat - have been working to support the psychological safety and well-being of their journalists and editors. Editors from each organization spoke about what led them to put these measures in place and the beneficial impact of doing so on their staff, freelancers, and their journalism.
Newsrooms Putting Journalists' Well-being First
Speakers
Carlos Fernando Chamorro, Founder & Director, Confidencial
Charlotte Higgins, Social Media Editor, Bellingcat
Pu Ying Huang, Director of Photography, Texas Tribune
Moderator
Maria Salazar Ferro, Director, Newsroom Safety and Resilience, The New York Times
Safety Fundamentals for Journalists and Editors
Speakers
Laura Silvia Battaglia Al-Jalal, Freelance journalist
Chris Lawton, Co-founder and Director Silk Road Training
Alexander Papachristou, Executive Director, Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice
Maria Salazar Ferro, Director Newsroom Safety and Resilience, The New York Times
Moderator
Elisabet Cantenys, Executive Director, ACOS Alliance
The IJF24 safety clinics were run in partnership with:
