minder

plural minders

1. One who minds, tends, or watches something such as a child, a machine, or cattle; a keeper.

   With the bulky, heavy helmet for the film strapped on, I was inside a fully immersive virtual world. With de la Peña playing minder and holding a tether which prevented me from bumping into walls, I somehow ended up inside the news story.

   2013 September 25, Neal Ungerleider, “Put On A Helmet, And You’re In The Story: Why Virtual Reality Journalism Is The Future”, in Fast Company, archived from the original on 26 May 2020

2. UKA personal bodyguard.
3. A monitor assigned by the authorities to someone, such as a foreign visitor (to exercise control over their contacts with the populace) or a journalist or someone who is speaking to journalists (to monitor and control what they say).

   Rear Admiral John Woodward, the operational commander, summarized the instructions to the six MoD minders as “co-operation, yes; information, no.”

   2009, Thomas Rid, Marc Hecker, War 2.0: Irregular Warfare in the Information Age, page 83

   5 more examples

   The twenty-eight journalists who sailed with the task force were accompanied by seven censors or 'minders' from the MoD, as well as by military press officers attached to each unit.

   1982, Paul Eddy, Magnus Linklater, Peter Gillman, The Falklands War, page 212

   Once again the employers, now closely gripped by Central Government minders, offered 4 % now and 7 % in one year's time, and all tied to modernisation. This was not what the FBU had bargained for. So the strike started.

   2005, Roger V. Seifert, Tom Sibley, United They Stood: The Story of the UK Firefighters' Dispute 2002-4, Lawrence & Wishart Limited

   Pieter Tans, a 20-year National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) employee, was told not to use the phrase 'climate change' in paper titles and abstracts for the Seventh International Carbon Dioxide Conference. When an official flew in from Washington to be present for an interview Tans gave to the BBC, Mr. Tans wondered why a U.S. government “minder”, reminiscent of Iraq under Saddam Hussein, was required.

   2008, Poor George's Almanac: A 2008 Calendar, →ISBN, page 101

   Throughout Greene's writing he repeatedly refers to dodging government control in Liberia, first by entering the country incognito and then by completing his journey without government minders.

   2010 Oct, Tim Butcher, “Our Man in Liberia”, in History Today, volume 60, number 10, pages 10–17

   […] some other journalists were becoming "embedded" with the military as one way of reporting from the front: living with the military, […] and reporting under military restrictions. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, embedded reporters tended to adopt the perspective of their hosts and minders, as US journalist Gordon Dillow later admitted […]

   2015, Tony Harcup, Journalism: Principles and Practice, SAGE, →ISBN, page 79

4. obsoleteOne who is taken care of, such as a pauper child in the care of private person; a ward.

plural Minders

1. A surname.