Handbook for Covering Wildfires Published

By: Rafe Bartholomew Wildfire season is right around the corner, and reporters who might cover the blazing Southwest are asking their editors for The Reporter's Hazardous Assignment Handbook: Wildfires. At least Jim Moscou hopes they're asking.

Containing how-to information on everything from recognizing dangerous smoke columns to avoiding gastrointestinal disease in crowded fire camps, the Wildfires handbook, which goes to press this week, will help journalists stay safe and tell better stories, said Moscou, president and publisher of Hazardous Media in Boulder, Colo., and an E&P contributing editor. The book is pocket-sized, spiral-bound at the top like a reporter's notepad, and "practically indestructible" thanks to hard-to-tear pages and a cover made of durable, malleable plastic, he said.

Hazardous Media plans to release six more handbooks by the end of 2004, on topics such as terrorism, war, chemical spills, natural disasters, and street safety. The company also sells equipment such as fire shelters, flame-resistant Nomex clothing, and clean air masks on its Web site (www.hazardousmedia.com). Eventually, the start-up company will offer newsroom training to go along with the handbooks, said Moscou. He's already partnered with the Colorado-based Anchor Point Group to develop wildfire survival classes for journalists.

Moscou wrote a cover story for this magazine last August on covering wildfires, and has also written about wildfires in U.S. News & World Report and The New York Times Magazine. He was among the first U.S. reporters to attend a military "boot camp" for journalists last year and later took training in biological and chemical safety, which he wrote about for E&P.

Hazardous Media was partly "born out of anger" that news organizations were sending journalists on dangerous assignments without providing them proper training or protective gear, Moscou said.

"It's absolutely negligent," he said. "I just don't see how management of a large media organization can't equip their reporters properly." There are "a lot of reporters who show up to wildfires in flip-flops, shorts, or stiletto heels," and it's not uncommon for journalists to be assigned to cover wildfires without any training other than "an hour-long brown-bag lunch," Moscou said.

News organizations improved their training programs for terrorist and combat situations after the 9/11 attacks, Moscou pointed out. "The industry saw the war [in Iraq] coming and recognized the need to train reporters for hostile environments." But "war is the exception," added Moscou, and journalists aren't trained to safely cover more common dangers like tornadoes and chemical spills.

Safety is just one part of Moscou's overall goal for Hazardous Media. Journalists who are prepared and properly equipped also write better stories, he said.

A reporter who understands the government's Incident Command System for responding to crisis situations and who knows firefighting tactics is "less reliant on government minders," said Moscou. As journalists, "we need to be sharp, trained, and prepared. Otherwise we're just left to being fed information by PIOs [public information officers], and that's not very good journalism."

Objectivity is compromised by media's reliance on the government for training and equipment, Moscou believes. "Being trained by the same people you have to report on is always a problem," he said. "You don't want people toeing a government line while they're trying to teach you."

Beyond his business goals, Moscou hopes his efforts will help improve the journalism profession. As proof of his dedication to the industry, Moscou said 10% of any profits the company makes will be donated to families of journalists who died in the field. "I'm a journalist first," he said. "I've been a businessman for the past six months, and I can't wait to get back to being a journalist."
---
E&P welcomes letters to the editor: letters@editorandpublisher.com.