AJR 40(2) 33 Covering terrorism safely in France, Belgium, Russia, Australia, the UK and the USA Colleen Murrell and Verica Rupar Abstract In the latest round of major terrorism incidents that have hit a number of countries in recent years, it is the home-based general reporters who are relied on to cover breaking news. Whereas previously the media have sent foreign correspondents on ‘hostile environments’ training to help them to work safely ‘on the road’, there has been considerably less thought given to the safety of feld reporters sent out to cover terrorism attacks in the vicinity of newsrooms. This paper addresses points made in the UNESCO ‘Research agenda on the safety of journalists’ docu- ment (Poyhtari, 2017): point 2, concerning journalists covering terror- ism and unrest and point 5, concerning ‘practitioner issues’, namely journalists’ perceptions and awareness of safety. This paper uses quali- tative interviewing of a range of editors from six countries (Australia, Belgium, France, Russia, the UK and the USA) to fnd out how they cover terrorism at home and whether or not they consider it necessary to provide extra safety training for their reporters. Introduction Covering the growth of Islamic State-inspired terrorism in recent years has posed numer- ous challenges to mainstream media across the world. In a marketplace where news is broken by civilian eyewitnesses who often play the role of frst responders and post comment on social media before it has gone through even the barest of verifcation checks, media editors struggle to fulfl the task of informing the public while reporting on stories that hold the potential to alarm the audience. This paper ofers some insights into the ways the news media operate in such situa- tions, balancing legal obligations and keeping in mind the best interests of their readers, listeners and viewers. Based on face-to-face interviews with selected editors in France, Belgium, Russia, Australia, the UK and the USA, it explores editors’ understanding of journalism safety threats in a variety of confict situations. Responding to the UNESCO call to develop a research agenda