On Wednesday June 13, 2012, a mini-bus transporting Cameroon Tribune reporters on their daily assignments in Yaounde narrowly missed a head-on collision with a truck driven by a reckless driver. Although no one was injured, the glass windows of the left side of the mini-bus were shattered.
This is just one type of life-threatening risks that reporters around the world today face on a daily basis. Besides car accidents, other challenging and hostile environments for reporters include natural disasters, wars, riots, crime, amongst others. It is against this backdrop that the World Media Summit (WMS) is organising a global training programme on reporters' safety that is hosted by the New China (Xinhua) News Agency in the Chinese capital city, Beijing.
Some 30 reporters from mainstream news organs from 30 countries including two from Sub-Saharan Africa as well as 20 reporters working for various Chinese news organisations are participating in the five-day training programme.
Speaking at the official opening on Monday June 18, 2012, the WMS Secretary General and Head of Foreign Affairs for New China (Xinhua) News Agency, Zhou Zongmin, said journalism has become a dangerous profession. "106 journalists were killed in 2011 as against 94 in 2010," he disclosed. He explained that the workshop will include lectures on managing journalists and reporting in hostile environments, travel security tips for journalists, protecting reporters in natural disasters and nuclear accidents as well as reporting on conflict.
He expressed hope that the workshop will provide participants with practical strategies to carry out their work effectively and efficiently in the face of conflicts and disasters. He also disclosed that two more training programmes will hold in Cairo and Nairobi before the end of 2012. Included in the package of field trips organised for the participants is a visit to the Great Wall of China on Friday June 22.
The World Media Summit (WMS) is a non-governmental, non-profit and high-level media conference that was launched in 2009 as a joint initiative by Xinhua News Agency, the Associated Press, News Corporation, Thomson Reuters, British Broadcasting Corporation, Google, amongst others. The President of Xinhua News Agency, Li Congjun, heads the WMS as its Executive Chairman. The next summit is built for Moscow, Russia this year.
