3 minute read
BBC High Risk team
from BBC MONITOR 29
Tim Coey
Tim Coey, an analyst in the BBC’s High Risk team, explains what his team does – and how BBC Monitoring reports help assess the security situation in the countries where the BBC deploys staff.
Advertisement
Reporting from conflict zones is a highly dangerous and difficult job. The BBC has special arrangements to manage work where there may be a significantly higher than normal risk of death or serious injury to staff resulting from:
• going to or being resident in an environment designated as hostile by the BBC;
• taking part in activities deemed High Risk by the BBC;
• deploying to High Risk Events.
The High Risk and News Safety team where I work supports teams with advice as they prepare for their assignments and with support after they are deployed. My role as an analyst is to make sure that relevant information is available to staff as they do their risk assessments, to keep the country risk designations up-to-date (Red/Hostile Environment; Yellow/ Travel Advisory), and to update that information if anything changes. That information feeds through into the Risk Assessment templates for locations.
As an analyst in the High Risk team I find the BBCM website an invaluable tool and source of expertise.
The searchable database going back to the 1990s gives me quick access to information on topics relevant to our main risk assessment categories: conflict/war, terrorism, civil unrest, health risks, economic and environmental factors, transportation, crime statistics, the media environment, information security risks, and kidnappings and detentions.
BBCM Alerts help me ensure that the latest risk news updates for a location are accurate and complete.
Deployment planning: looking at the security situation in Algeria
BBC
In addition, BBC Monitoring’s Media Guides and Country Profiles – the latter are available on the public BBC News website – often provide necessary background to teams planning deployments, to risk assessors, and to the risk owners/managers who approve deployments. The Insight pieces give context and help identify new trends which affect the risk profiles of many more hazardous locations.
BBC Monitoring offers important quotes “from the horse’s mouth” as well as access to a variety of in-house expertise and knowledge. This includes diverse perspectives based on experience of life and work in many different media environments. BBC Monitoring’s expertise is a great help when we are making assessments of the security situation in the locations where we send journalists to report for BBC News.
Tim Coey is an analyst in the BBC’s High Risk team
