FORWARD-PLANNING

INTERVIEW

SOPHIE HUET

GLOBAL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

"Forward-planning for better-quality coverage."

Forward-planning is by definition at the

very heart of an agency journalist’s job.

Why highlight it in 2022?

It is true that being well-prepared for what's coming next lies

at the heart of what we do. Some events are predictable and

you can prepare for them. This enables you to tackle the co-

verage with less stress. It’s something we have to integrate

int

o our culture. But it’s still not ingrained everywhere so we

have to continue to make progress. Good preparation also

improves the coverage. We have more time to think of good

angles, do more research, flesh out the context. We can also

think how best to present the information, organise photo,

video, lives, and the technical side of things. It also gives us

time to pull together archives in text and images.

Is AFP’s Ukraine coverage a good example

of this?

The war in Ukraine has been a mix of the predictable and

the unpredictable. When the Russians invaded, we had

already laid the groundwork in terms of our staffing and the

safety of our teams on the ground even if we were caught

unawares like everyone else We then worked tirelessly on

forwardplanning rotating our teams of special correspon

dents setting up the Ukraine cell really making sure eve

ryone was safe

We were agile and flexible solving problems that we iden

tified from our feedback sessions with reporters back from

the field We had specific meetings on the possibility of a

nuclear strike whether it be a tactical or a dirty bomb The

aim was to work out what special equipment we would

need and what measures we would need to take in advance

Between the start of the offensive and the summer we de

ployed a considerable number of people on the ground

Since September we have revised this again with longer

missions based mainly in Kyiv special correspondents on

the frontline with security advisors and more locally hired

stringers Reporting from the frontline is exhausting and

we have cut back the length of missions

Is there special attention paid to the safety

of the teams in the field during the forward-

planning process?

The question of security was a bit of a blind spot in our

forward-planning machine. The war in Ukraine showed us

the need to bolster this aspect within the Chief Editor’s team.

Jean-Marc Mojon, former Beirut bureau chief, has been ap-

pointed to oversee editorial forward-planning as well as the

security issues surrounding an event. Working with Emma-

nuel Serot, already in charge of security training and equip-

ment at the technical chief editor’s department, Jean-Marc

will ensure that our teams are well-trained, well-equipped,

and that reconnaissance missions have taken place before-

hand. He will also ensure the mental health aspects of cove-

ring such events is taken into account.

Why does video play such a key role in

forward-planning?

The entire forward-planning process is driven to a large

extent by video because it requires a lot of staff and better

preparation Video are also generally more in tune with

clients requests The rest of the newsroom should learn

from this and get used to getting ahead of the curve

Is the agenda a key tool when it comes to

forwardplanning

The agenda published for clients and the internal planning

tool Iris360 helps to share information better at all levels

of the agency between all the different disciplines from

the bureaux up to the chief editing team Everyone knows

that they need to be constantly feeding these databases

with new events It is the responsibility of every journalist

to input the events on hisher patch as well as to lay out the

coverage expected The agenda is an important sales pro

duct that is extremely useful for clients But its also a key

tool for internal communication

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