Chris Post, a freelance photojournalist for WFMZ Allentown, Pa., specializes in journalist safety. So when Russia invaded Ukraine, Post volunteered to conduct a Zoom call for Ukrainian national journalists.
Chris Post, a freelance photojournalist for WFMZ, an independent station in Allentown, Pa., owned by Maranatha Broadcasting, specializes in journalist safety. A former firefighter/EMT, Post teaches courses in emergency medical care for several state and federal government agencies.
So when Russia invaded Ukraine, local journalists working in Ukraine began reaching out to him with safety related questions. Post volunteered to conduct a Zoom call and found someone local to Allentown who could translate the real-time live session on Zoom in the Ukraine language.
Post says 40 people signed up to be on the Zoom call, but due to internet connectivity issues, only 22 could make it.
Post says most found out about the Zoom call through The National Union of Journalists of Ukraine.
“They were Ukrainian journalists,” Post says. “There might have been a freelancer, a foreign freelancer that was in the country, but the majority were Ukrainian national journalists, people that live in Ukraine and work for a publication.”
Post says he covered a variety of safety issues that comes with being in a hostile environment, from how to use a tourniquet to how to maintain situational awareness, and putting on body armor and wearing it correctly.
And since Russia captured the Chernobyl nuclear site and attacked several others, Post put together a document “on the difference between exposure and contamination and what to do if a journalist thinks they are contaminated.”
Post says the gravity of the situation there kicked in when he was told that “there were journalists who were hunkered down in air raid shelters watching my Zoom while they were getting bombed.”
“It is a crazy situation there,” Post says. “We have got to do something to support our brothers and sisters.”
CLICK HERE to see information about journalist safety.
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