There’s a new organization called Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues (RISC) that’s training photographers around the world in first aid, in order to prevent what happened to Tim Hetherington from happening again. Pete Brook of Wired writes,

When photojournalist Tim Hetherington suffered a mortar shell wound to the groin in Libya in April of last year, he ultimately died of massive blood loss. His death, according to friends, may have been prevented. “Tim was my closest friend,” says Michael Kamber [...] “He bled to death because he was surrounded by photographers who didn’t know how to stop the bleeding.”

In response to this assessment, Hetherington’s other close friend and co-director of the Oscar winning documentary Restrepo, Sebastian Junger, founded [RISC] of which Kamber sits on the board. The organization simulates real war-injury scenarios [...] complete with pools of blood, contorted limbs and frenetic movement amid smoke-clad air, in order to train photographers and journalists in potentially life-saving techniques. “We go to great lengths to achieve the feel of war,” says Kamber.

Check out this video on YouTube for a look at what the training is like.

War Reporters Train in the Bronx, Complete With Blood, Smoke and Gunfire [Wired]

Image credit: Photograph by Katie Khouri/Wired

Roughly 50 staffers at CNN were given pink slips today, including nearly a dozen photojournalists. In an email to the staff, Senior VP Jack Womack cited the accessibility of cameras and the growth of citizen journalism as reasons for the terminations:

We also spent a great deal of time analyzing how we utilize and deploy photojournalists across all of our locations in the U.S. [...] We looked at the impact of user-generated content and social media, CNN iReporters and of course our affiliate contributions in breaking news. Consumer and pro-sumer technologies are simpler and more accessible. Small cameras are now high broadcast quality. More of this technology is in the hands of more people. After completing this analysis, CNN determined that some photojournalists will be departing the company.

CNN’s citizen journalism initiative, iReport, has proved extremely valuable as a source of imagery during things like disasters and protests. However, it has also received criticism for not paying for submitted photos — even those that are subsequently broadcast worldwide.

(via The Hollywood Reporter via FilmmakerIQ)

Image credit: CNN by Ayushπ