NAB New York 2023 attendees will be able to investigate a new but increasingly necessary pitch: Broadcast staff security. Journalists and media outlets in the United States are under growing threat as the country becomes more and more politically charged.
Aware of this, a group of senior broadcasters and security experts have combined their experience and insights and created Securepoint, a New York-based security company with a mission to “make free speech safe.” The company will use the annual meeting of New York broadcasters to present its case.
The team behind Securepoint are CEO Claudia Haase, the founder and CEO of Streamworkz, who has more than 20 years of experience in the broadcast technology sector; CSO John Daniels, a former U.S. Marine with a lifelong career in military and private sector security; and Board Chair Steve Shultis, an award-winning technologist with decades of experience in the broadcast news and information technology industries.
According to Securepoint, its security and protection solutions are comprehensive and holistic, considering every point of potential contact and integrating a range of physical, technological and conceptual best practices to offer protection from multiple angles. These may include any combination of physical safety equipment, technical solutions (such as active shooter detection), digital security measures, legal mechanisms, establishing safe contacts and fixer networks, developing emergency protocols, and providing best practice training across all relevant fields.
Security not one fixed thing
Daniels says, “Defining what we do can often be complex because, in reality, it is not one fixed thing — we do not offer a rigid range of products or a predefined approach to security and protection. Instead, we offer a consultative service based on more than 25 years of experience in security operations, with much of that drawn directly from the world of broadcast. We combine that knowledge and analytical ability with a deeply client-centric approach to provide specific, targeted and context-appropriate solutions to organizations, taking into account their needs, resources, operational contexts, and the unique risks and challenges they face.”
At the heart of the organizations we work with are people — sometimes people working in challenging, threatening and dangerous environments.
Steve Shultis, board Chair of Securepoint
Shultis adds, “Underpinning our philosophy is the idea that at the heart of the organizations we work with are people — sometimes people working in challenging, threatening and dangerous environments. Protecting them is important not only because the individual safety of a team is paramount but also because keeping them safe is crucial to ensuring they can do their jobs effectively. In that sense, it’s vital not just for the operational continuity of the individual broadcaster, but on a wider societal level, fundamentally important because it protects free speech and allows broadcasters to operate free of undue influence, threat or corruption.”
Concluding their remarks, Haase says, “As a New York-based company with a global reach, it’s always a pleasure to be on ‘home turf’ with an event as big as NAB. We’re really looking forward to meeting our industry peers and taking the opportunity to talk to them in-depth about how we can support their broadcast operations.”