Prime info

Your Safety Matters

With the development of multi-skilled personnel, smaller cameras and equipment and the need to save time / money, there has been an increasing trend towards lone working within the media industry. With so much focus on the constraints of the task in hand it is easy to forget about your personal safety.

There have been a number of cases in recent history where this has led to trouble. Lone workers are most at risk, especially when working at night or in dangerous situations, plus carrying expensive equipment or covering sensitive stories can both attract unwanted attention. If you have not considered your personal safety before deploying it may be too late for you to put safety measures into place.

Our Lone Working and Personal Safety courses have been specifically designed to provide you with a framework and options to consider, to enable you to plan how you might complete your assignment as safely as possible.

Rising interest in Public Order

There has been an increase in the numnber of public order incidents in the last year. Political tensions are rising and focus on climate change has intensified, both within the UK and abroad. This was highlighted by the arrival of the G20 summit in April, which saw one of the largest demonstrations ever seen on the streets of London. Prior to the event, the large media organisations realised that it would not be safe to send out reporters into this large potentially volatile crowd situation without the benifit of having received appropriate training.

As the sole providers of Public Order training, Prime Media were inundated with requests. We delivered as many extra courses as possible leading up to the event and put on some Personal Safety Awareness presentations for those could not fit onto the Public Order courses. Since then the profile of Public Order safety has been much higher within the industry. It has now become policy within the larger organisations not to let anybody onto the ground to cover any demonstrations or potentially volatile crowds situations unless they have been trained before hand (this includes freelancers). As a result our courses have been fully booked up until March 2010.

We are currently arranging more dates to cope with demand, so if you require training please contact us ASAP to enrol onto a course or be put on the reserve list. It may be too late to get the training when you need it, so be prepared and reserve your place now.

Opportunity For Advanced Safety Training

Prime Media have managed to secure media inclusion in a large scale national police exercise. There will be a 2 day scenario based exercise covering all areas of policing in a community from common criminality through to major public disorder. This would be an excellent opportunity for experienced front line News based teams to refresh and reinforce their practical safety skills in a realistic environment. It could also be used as a planning and coordination exercise for managers and deployment staff.

The exercise will take place at Lydd in Kent on the 21^st – 22^nd July 2010. Cost per delegate will be £530 +VAT this will include food an accommodation for the duration of the exercise. If you are interested in taking up this opportunity or wish to discuss it further please contact us.