31 Jan Confined to ship

CBC newsmen Rob Gordon and Craig Paisley left Halifax for Haiti aboard HMCS Athabaskan January 14, but returned home Friday without setting foot on the island.

It seems the journalists were confined to the warship because their required training for operating in dangerous environments was not up to date. Both men had received the five-day course, provided by U.K.-based AKE Integrated Risk Solutions, before traveling to Afghanistan several years ago, but their accreditation has expired.

As a result, CBC brass ordered the men not to leave the ship.

“It’s analogous to a driver’s licence,” said CBC’s Atlantic Regional Director Andrew Cochran. “If you go in without it, it’s like driving without a licence: (a) it’s an offence, and (b) your insurance won’t cover you.

A source told Contrarian that the problem was only discovered once the reporters were en route, and frantic efforts to get them the required refresher course by phone were unavailing.

Not so, says Cochran.

“We were completely aware of the situation before they left,” he said in a telephone interview. “We knew there would be CBC reporters covering events on the ground, The decision was that it was still worth sending them to cover the story of the navy sailors going in to help.”

Gordon is Canada’s most experienced reporter of naval issues.

Cochran acknowledged that there had been discussions of getting the refresher course en route, but this proved impossible.

Since arriving off the Haitian coast January 18, the two men have blogged about their experience and filed occasional dispatches from aboard ship. Paisley filed his final blog post Wednesday.