Event Coverage Highlight

In partnership with the ACOS Alliance and the Overseas Press Club (OPC), VICE Media is offering three 90-minutes long safety workshops to freelance journalists, including visual journalists.

Schedule and content outline for these sessions:

Digital Security: Trainers will go into some advanced strategies around securing your online presence and prepping your information-security strategy in advance of assignments just like you do for physical safety. AMA around information-security best practices. Tuesday, March 2 at 10:00 a.m. ET.

Physical Safety & Civil Unrest: Tactics on working in protest environments, warning signs and how to prepare for an escalation of threats or violence by protesters or law enforcement, and most importantly how to proactively prepare from a risk and security front. AMA around authority tactics, equipment, general escalations. Thursday, March 4 at 10:00 a.m. ET.

Self-Care: Conversation with Ramy Ghaly on his own personal strategies, and how he built a resilient and proactive approach for himself and lessons learned. Walk through of available resources and tools to help you prioritize mental health. Tuesday, March 9 at 10:00 a.m. ET.

These workshops are FREE, but capacity is limited. Please apply by Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021.

Click here to read more and register >>

Participants must meet these requirements:

• Be a freelance journalist, including visual journalists and documentary filmmakers. Priority will be given to those at risk because of their work.
• Priority will be given to those freelancers able to commit to attend the three workshops.
• The workshops don’t have a geographical focus and participants’ location is not relevant. Participants can attend from any time zone, but courses will start at 10 am Eastern Standard Time (New York). So please double check this works for you in your time zone. Sessions won’t be recorded.
• Secure access to a laptop, computer or tablet; and a good internet connection.
• Be proficient in English.

Trainers short bios:

Sharbil Nammour leads the Global Security and Risk Team at VICE Media in supporting journalists and teams worldwide, across all conditions. He specializes in transforming free-spirited mayhem into organized chaos.

Destiny Montague is an Information Security Engineer at Vice Media where she helps keep the Newsroom and journalists secure. She also leads Vice’s Security Awareness Training program and administers Vice’s SecureDrop, a secure whistleblower platform. Destiny likes to break things, and then fix them… maybe.

Ramy Ghaly is the Production Security Manager at VICE Media and he helps journalists navigate and work around risks on sensitive beats and in hostile environments. Previously, he was a human rights defender and a combat medic. Ramy studied a broad spectrum of security disciplines and is fluent in Arabic.

The ACOS Alliance and OPC will select participants based on established criteria and the information shared in the application.

The ACOS Alliance (A Culture of Safety Alliance) is an unprecedented coalition of news organizations, freelance journalist associations and press freedom organizations working together to champion safe and responsible journalistic practices for freelance and local journalists worldwide. The Alliance facilitates collaborative initiatives to improve the safety of journalists exposed to danger. Please visit our resource pages with information on insurance, contracts and other safety info.

The Overseas Press Club of America is the United States’ oldest and largest association of journalists engaged in international news. Every April, it awards the most prestigious prizes devoted exclusively to international news coverage. It was founded in 1939 by nine foreign correspondents in New York City, and has grown to nearly 500 members worldwide. The club’s mission is to uphold the highest standards in news reporting, advance press freedom and promote good fellowship among colleagues while educating a new generation of journalists.