Junger, American writer, launches medical training program for journalists in combat

Prominent American reporter Sebastian Junger told The Huffington Post today that he hopes a new medical training program he's launching for reporters in combat situations will set a higher standard for the industry.

Junger, who started his career as a freelancer in Bosnia, said most of today's reporting risks are being shouldered by freelancers.

His new initiative, Reporters Instructed In Saving Colleagues (RISC), intends to address that. The largely cost-free, three-day emergency medical training course saw registration open Monday, with 100 reporters already signed up for the first three sessions in New York City, London, and Beirut, said The Huffington Post.

"People really in the meat grinder of the front lines are not, for the most part, insured or salaried network correspondents," Junger, a hugely successful journalist known for best-seller "The Perfect Storm" and documentary film "Restrepo," told The Huffington Post. "They're young freelancers. They're kind of a cheap date for the news industry."

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In fact, over half of all reporters killed last year died in crossfire, combat, or on a dangerous assignment, according to the press advocacy group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

One of them was Tim Hetherington, a former colleage and dear friend of Junger's who died Libya along with photographer Chris Hondros on April 20 while reporting on unrest there. 

Junger said the idea for the medical training program came to him after Hetherington's funeral, where he was informed that injuries sustained by his friend might not have been life-threatening if someone on the scene had been able to stop the bleeding for 10 more minutes.

"Tim’s wounds did not have to be mortal," Junger earlier told Foreign Affairs magazine. "He bled out, but there are things you can do in his situation to slow the bleeding down to get the person to real help. No one around him knew what to do, and I wouldn’t have either. I want to prevent the next Tim."

CPJ also highlighted the risks facing journalists in a 2011 special report that focused on reporters covering protests in the Arab world.