Colin Pereira on reporting in fragile environments

How can we manage risk and keep people safe in fragile environments?

My guest Colin Pereira is Director at HP Risk Management, a consultancy that assists media organisations operating in challenging environments. Since the business of journalism is to report, news organisations need to get their reporters into locations the rest of us might prefer to avoid.
As a human risk challenge, this is multifaceted — many of the risks facing journalists in the field are human, and the decisions they make while on assignment also provide plenty of opportunity for human risk to manifest itself. Meanwhile the media organisations need to consider how they manage the risk from an organisational perspective.

Colin helps news organisations build their compliance infrastructure and crisis management for dangerous assignments. In simple terms, that involves supporting journalists and broadcasters in managing risk when they go into war zones, disaster locations or engage in dangerous investigations. For two decades, he has shaped the risk management model for journalists operating under threat. In 2020, Colin launched RiskPal, a software as a service platform focusing on streamlining risk assessment. In addition to working with numerous news organisations, he also serves as the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Safety Strategist. Previously he was head of security for ITN and Deputy Head of BBC High-Risk Team. Colin has advised teams of journalists covering wars, natural disasters, terrorism and riots globally, and has worked on high-risk investigations. He was also an award-winning journalist for BBC Newsnight and BBC Current Affairs.

In our discussion, Colin explains how he went from studying Islamic fundamentalism to working for The BBC. Firstly as part of the security team, and then as a journalist where he worked in some very dangerous locations. That means he’s got some fascinating anecdotes about the kinds of risks that journalists face and what the organisations that employ them can do to mitigate the risks they’ll be facing.

During our discussion, we talk about:

Colin's career: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colin-pereira-187b2828/

HP Risk Management: https://www.hpriskmanagement.co.uk/

RiskPal: https://www.riskpal.com/

The BBC report Colin was working on in Afghanistan: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00m36bj

How social media impacted the 2011 Arab Spring protests in Egypt: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12400319