News
Brad Will’s parents announce indy investigation into journo’s death
Kathy and Hardy Will, parents of the Indymedia journalist Brad Will who was shot dead in Oaxaca more than a year ago, have branded the Mexican investigation into the journalist’s death “frustrating and disappointing” for its failure to find those responsible. Will was shot dead by plain-clothed armed men on October 27th 2006 whilst covering […]
Mexican President wants to ease tension between Ecuador and Columbia
President Calderon of Mexico telephoned his counterparts in Ecuador and Columbia this week – Rafael Correa and Ãlvaro Uribe – to discuss the increasingly tense situation between the two countries since Columbia strayed onto Ecuadorean soil over the weekend and killed ‘the second-highest-ranking leader in Colombia’s largest leftist guerrilla group,’ the FARC and 16 other […]
10 days to war
Interesting experiment from the BBC Newsnight team starting on March 10. 10 Days to War is a dramdoc created to mark the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Writing on the BBC Editor’s blog Peter Barron explains, The eight episodes, each of which focuses on the events and issues from the same day exactly […]
“More nervous than when I read the 10 o’clock news”
Frontline club member George Alagiah received his OBE for services to journalism this week. He admitted feeling “hugely honoured” by the award and that meeting the Queen got his nerves going a bit more than the day job does, “I think because there is history behind all of this and when you think of all […]
Angola in the frame
War artist John Keane has covered war from the Falklands to the Gulf War. However, his latest work concentrates on peacetime Angola. In The Independent he talks about how he works using digital photography in the field before hammering out the canvases in his studio in London, Back in his London studio, Keane spent a […]
Buying a sandwich in Baghdad
The New York Times run Baghdad Bureau is shaping up to be quite an interesting group blog. Today, Balen Y. Younis who is an Iraqi employee of The New York Times, writes about working for the newspaper, the reaction of friends when he told them he was going to work for the western media outlet […]
Kidnap victim John Martinkus back in Afghanistan
SBS Dateline Video Journalist John Martinkus returns to Afghanistan to report on his time spent travelling with the US 82nd Airborne in Afghanistan. John was kidnapped in 2004, where he was also embedded with US forces. At the time the BBC reported that Google saved him when his captors said they checked Google to confirm […]
News gathering in Afghanistan
[video:youtube:rPaTgRPr4O4] Here’s a brief video of how a number of Afghanistan based journalists followed a breaking story from their bases in Kabul. How good stringers and local knowledge are invaluable and the value of input from military sources, Veteran reporter and filmmaker Bill Gentile profiles noted journalists from The New York Times, the BBC, Time, […]
Africa Reading Challenge
Siphoning Off A Few Thoughts is hosting an Africa Reading Challenge. The idea is to read six books this year which are about Africa, set in Africa, written by an African etc and then post reviews. I wish I had a few more imaginative books sitting in my unread pile: Elizabeth David’s Provincial Nile Cuisine, […]
Social networking sites have brought new opportunities for journalists, and new problems
Social networking sites like Facebook and Bebo are awash with video and pictures uploaded by the general public. News organisations are grappling with what they can and can’t use from the sites, but there is no agreed standard and recent months have seen them make a litany of mistakes. In January, Steve Herrmann, Editor of […]
All about story-telling
MSNBC foreign correspondent Martin Fletcher remembers the good days, the carefree times and the big budgets. It’s all change now isn’t it Martin… We traveled to the airport in black limousines chauffeured by stiff-backed men in black suits and caps. We flew first class and became connoisseurs of fine wines. And then the shoe dropped: […]
They’re Not Getting Around
So I finally got something right. Last week I was panicking because colleagues in Joburg had begun calling me to find out if the gentle scent of teargas was once again wafting around Nairobi. This was a concern because my folks had just arrived on holiday. And they had travelled largely because I had reassured […]
“It’s my story, I want to cover it”
News reader and foreign correspondent Carol Barnes was fighting for her life last night after suffering a massive stroke at her home in Brighton. Carol had been due to fly out to South Africa in a few days’ time. Sir David Nicholas, former head of ITN remembers an occasion when Carol insisted on following up […]
2008 British Press Awards
The 2008 British Press Awards nominees were announced today. Sean Smith, from the previous post, is up for the new category of “Digital journalist of the year” while the contenders for Foreign Reporter of the year consist of almost all Frontline Club members, Christina Lamb from the Sunday Times, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad who works for The […]
Photographer Sean Smith talks at the Frontline Club
[video:brightcove:1442780964] Photographer Sean Smith won the Press Photographer’s Year 2007: Photograph of the Year and Best News photo for his image of a hooded detainee in Hawijah, Iraq. Last week he spoke at the Frontline Club. Click the video above to watch the talk.
Will Mugabe win again?
With the elections just around the corner the discussion at the Frontline Club turns to Zimbabwe and the possibilities for change or not with Zimbabwean finance minister Simba Makoni challenging Robert Mugabe in the elections. The discussion is chaired by Adam Roberts, an Africa specialist with the Economist. Taking part are Sunday Times foreign affairs […]
The Angel of Grozny
Simon Mayo at BBC Radio 5 Live talks to war correspondent Asne Sierstad about her work in Chechnya over the past decade and her new book The Angel of Grozny. You can listen to the interview direct here or subscribe to the Daily Mayo podcast, Norwegian journalist Asne Sierstad has covered conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan […]
A day in the life of a Burmese journalist
Aye Chan Myate, who was until recently a senior editor with a weekly journal in Rangoon, writes in The Irrawaddy what it’s like to be a working journalist in Rangoon. Doesn’t sound a whole lot of fun, In our newsroom, only the management desk and the copy-typists worked with computers. We reporters and editors had […]
Pyongyang media scrum
Reuters photographer David Gray recently visited North Korea to cover the two day visit of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. His first visit to the peninsular began with a media scrum, What happened next must have been a rather unusual sight for North Korea – a media scrum. The traveling press of which we were […]
Oliver Poole in the Red Zone
Oliver Poole, a Frontline Club member we’ve blogged about previously, is pictured hard at work in a British base in Majar al-Kabir, 250 miles south-east of Baghdad. Oliver wrote Red Zone and the publisher Reportage Press has a Flickr photo group of snaps from and of its writers.
The janjaweed are back
One of the 2006 George Polk Award winners, Lydia Polgreen, writes about a new scorched earth policy in the Darfur region of Sudan for the New York Times. The newspaper includes another excellent multimedia photoreport this time by Lynsey Addario.
Want to be a foreign correspondent? Get a partner with a good job
According to Poynter blogger Fons Tuinstra the only reason many foreign correspondents survive is because their partner has a decent job. Fons talks about the state of Dutch foreign correspondents in the light of a recent report in De Journalist (in Dutch) – a magazine for the NVJ union for journalists – or translated into […]
From the NATO Review
I’ve cross-posted this on the Frontline blog. Vaughan features in an article in the latest edition of NATO Review. Vaughan discusses how he got into journalism, military minders and the importance of independent reporting, Managing correspondents in the field has become very much more complex, not least through the expansion in the size of the […]
NATO discusses digital media
NATO Review discusses the effects of new media and blogging upon the amount and quality of information coming out of warzones today. The video discussion includes contributions from the founder of liveleak.com – a haven for bomb blasts, humvee crashes and the like. The discussion accompanies an article by our very own Vaughan Smith about […]
A life up front
Writing in the LA Times Clancy Sigal reviews a new book of Bill Mauldin: A Life Up Front by Todd DePastino about the renowned war cartoonist Bill Maudlin. Maudlin, who died in 2003, is most remembered for his World War II cartoons although he later worked in Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf War. If he […]
2008 Knight International Journalism Awards
The nomination phase for the 2008 Knight International Journalism Awards is now open. Submission deadline is April 4, The Knight Awards is hosted by the International Center for Journalists. The Awards recognize international journalists who demonstrate an extraordinary devotion to the craft by upholding the highest journalistic standards despite overwhelming challenges. Award winners receive a […]
Teacher Faces Jail in Ethiopia after Exposing Paedophile
So you work tirelessly to expose paedophiles working in a children’s charity village in Ethiopia. Your work helps convict one British sex abuser. And for your trouble you face being sent to prison on Friday, possibly for six months because the charity involved has sued you for defamation rather than welcome your work in blowing […]
How Not to Write About Africa
It’s difficult to know where to begin with an NPR correspondent’s recent justification for using the term “Dark Continent” in a preview of George W’s trip to Africa. “I had no idea the term would be found offensive,” said Cochran, who joined NPR in 1981. “I will concede antiquated but I was unaware it was […]
Talk of ‘illegals’ in Beverly Hills
Hollywood, Los Angeles, February 2008The bar was beautiful, and so was she. Utterly Los Angeles, she wore a knee length dress with a low-cut top, allowing her audience to enjoy her full breasts framed by a fake fur coat that hung off her shoulders. The Beverly Hills hotel bar was comfortably full of what its […]
Geldof Shines a Light on Africa
Great piece by Bob Geldof in this week’s Time on George W’s Africa policy. It starts with a slightly terse exchange between the two… I gave the President my book. He raised an eyebrow. “Who wrote this for ya, Geldof?” he said without looking up from the cover. Very dry. “Who will you get to […]
