Tip-Sheets for Journalists to Safely Cover Urban Civil Protests

2022 has been a watershed year in many ways for Sri Lanka, even before halfway through the year. As continuous protests erupted across the country in late March, the media community found its daily reporting environment drastically changed. They faced newer threat dynamics as protests spread and also found it difficult to disengage from the all-encompassing reporting, even temporarily.

These tip-sheets were developed by Internews as an urgent resource that will equip Sri Lankan journalists to cover urban civil protests safely and professionally. We used internationally available resources to adapt some of the tips for reporting situations unique to Sri Lanka, while others were developed specifically for such situations.

Topics covered:

  • Reporting civil protests
  • Reporting long-term civil unrest
  • Reporting alone
  • Mental safety and wellbeing during reporting riots and
  • Safety tips for photojournalists.

This collection is also of relevance to activists and is by no means exhaustive, and should be used primarily as a tool to develop basic safety skills.