News

Churnalism at the Frontline Club

[video:brightcove:1437286069] Controversial media commentator Nick Davies was at the Frontline Club the other day to talk up (or down?) what he calls churnalism. Nick’s book, Flat Earth News, has stoked a mountain of controversy throughout the British media from the likes of Adrian Monck, the BBC’s Kevin Marsh and Frontline club regular Roy Greenslade. Not […]

Harrystan raises media debate

Writing on the BBC Editor’s blog about the recent deployment of Prince Harry to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, Jon Williams, says When the Ministry of Defence approached the BBC – along with other parts of the UK media – to ask us not to tell our audiences about a possible deployment of Prince Harry […]

A New Type of Kenyan Politician

Barack Obama with his Kenyan relatives. Granny Sarah is second from right, front row Barack Obama’s twin messages of “hope” and “change” are playing pretty well in the US. They’re playing even better in Kenya where his relatives are praying for peace. Here, the allure is simple. After years of misrule by politicians whose only […]

World War II through the eyes of a black soldier

The Cleveland Plain Dealer has a report about the experience of black soldiers during World War II. Among them were many of the 1 million black Americans who served during the war, including Frank James, 83, of Shaker Heights. The day after Pearl Harbor was attacked, James put a planned music career on hold, kissed […]

The folly of attacking Iran

Stephen Kinzer, former New York Times foreign correspondent, is in Philadeplhia on a tour to promote his book “The Folly of Attacking Iran”. Philly Mag interviews Kinzer ahead of his talk, As a staff reporter, I was not able to beat my spoon on the highchair. That’s one of the reasons I left the New […]

Baghdad bureau opens for blogging

The New York Times launches Baghdad Bureau this week. It’s “a blog supplementing the Reach of War coverage and focused on events inside Iraq” The New York Times Baghdad bureau is both home and office to between 7 and 10 western reporters, snappers and videographers along with a large Iraqi staff. The newspaper hopes the […]

Great war painting up for auction

An historic painting, called Incident at Bullecourt, by war artist Mervyn Napier Waller goes up for sale next month. The painting depicts Australian and Scottish soldiers on the front line in France during World War I. It’s unusual in that the artist painted it with his left hand after the right was blown off. It […]

What Happens When Kofi Goes Home?

So we have a deal to end Kenya’s bloodshed. Great. And it waters down the power of the president, which is an important step to ending Kenya’s winner-takes-all politics of tribalism. But why was Raila Odinga, the opposition leader soon to be installed in the new post of Prime Minister, looking hatchet faced throughout the […]

Journalists are targets says Allan Little

Patrick Smith at the Press Gazette grills Allan Little, Frontline Club member, regular MC at club events and BBC foreign correspondent. Allan talks about his time in the former Yugoslavia and how the conflict changed his life, “The one that changed my life was Yugoslavia,” he says. “The funny thing was, it started within a […]

W. C. Heinz dies at 93

The former war correspondent, sports columnist, magazine writer and novelist W.C. Heinz died on Wednesday at the age of 93. The New York Times obituary retells the story behind the story of his 1949 feature article “The Morning They Shot the Spies” In it he describes a firing squad execution of three Germans who had […]

Webb McKinley dies at 90

Webb McKinley, a former Associated Press foreign correspondent, has died. He was 90 years old. During his 35 year career with AP he worked in Detroit, Rome, Istanbul – becoming chief of Middle East services in Beirut in 1960. AP has more, “He was larger than life,” [daughter Judy McKinley said]. “He was one of […]

The Great Pastry Crisis

Deeply disturbing news arrives from Sudan. President Bashir has ordered a boycott of all things Danish in response to those cartoons of the prophet Mohammed being republished in newspapers over there. I suspect the Danish bacon industry will be unconcerned. But wait. What about the pastries served at Ozone, possibly the best coffeeshop in the […]

Pakistani Death Ray

Hilarious piece of Kabul gossip from Jean MacKenzie on the Institute of war and peace reporting blog. It appears the strength of rumour in Kabul rivals the strength of American firepower. And whatever you do, watch out for those incoming Pakistani death rays when you’re answering the phone, My favorite anecdote is the Pakistani Death […]

In Vietnam we looked like this…

Googling around for a picture of Sydney Schanberg for the previous post I discover this interesting wee site consisting of polaroid portraits of foreign correspondents and others who passed through the AP bureau in Saigon during the Vietnam war. Neal Ulevich has compiled the images here including the one above of Frontline Club regular Philip […]

Sydney Schanberg on embeds

Quick follow up from an earlier post about Greg Mitchell’s new book about the run up to Iraq and the role of the media, a raft of reporters wade in to the whole “to-embed or not-to-embed debate. Sydney Schanberg has his say, “Em-bed-ded,” said Sydney H. Schanberg [the New York Times journalist known for his […]

David Brooks on the role of foreign correspondents

New York Times columnist David Brooks gave a talk at UCLA this week. He touched on the topic of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal journalist who was held hostage and murdered in Karachi in 2002. He also discussed the role of the foreign correspondent. The UCLA student rag, The Daily Bruin, has more, “His […]

Kevin Sites in Haifa

Kevin Sites latest HotZone report is up. This time the roving multimedia reporter, who spent a year covering conflicts around the world for Yahoo, is in Northern Israel reporting from Haifa where residents were on the receiving end of Hezbollah rockets in summer 2006. You can also watch a short interview with Sites about the […]

Don’t be a whiner

From the Digital Journalist way back in 2003, war reporter Joseph L. Galloway gives sage advice to wannabe war reporters on what to carry and how to avoid being killed. I’ve extracted a few highlights, Strive to look as much like a private of whatever service you are travelling with. You do NOT want to […]

The run up to Iraq

In this week’s Editor & Publisher podcast there is an interview with E&P Editor Greg Mitchell who recently published a book about the run up to war in Iraq and the role of the media – “So Wrong for So Long: How the The Press, the Pundits — and the President — Failed on Iraq”. […]

Photographer Preston-Smith on Iraq

Writer and photographer Joel Preston-Smith spent four months in Iraq in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He talks about his most recent book “Night of a Thousand Stars and Other Portraits of Iraq” with The Oregonian, How do you feel about these people treating you so gently when your country […]

Korean variations

NBC News correspondent, Ian Williams is blogging the visit to North Korea of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, I was on a press bus, and could only guess what the orchestra was thinking, until I spoke to Michele Kim, violinist and assistant concertmaster, whose parents hail from North Korea. “I was a little bit apprehensive […]

Waiting and Seeing

The storm clouds have been gathering for a few days. Last week the opposition ODM said they would hold “peaceful” demonstrations on Thursday. Meanwhile, Kofi Annan has been looking increasingly like someone who thought he would have been back in time to be guest of honour at the African Cup of Nations final. His rather […]

Conflict economics

Frontline club member, photojournalist and regular in these parts, Marcus Bleasdale gets the Q&A going over at the Santa Barbara’s Independent prior to a talk he is giving a UCSB next month. Marcus’ work focusses on Africa, in particular the Democratic Republic of Congo. Money, he says, is at the root of all conflict, These […]

Tom Cholmondeley was back in court today. This time it’s for the latest appeal hearing as his defence team try to overturn the trial judge’s order to hand over their list of witnesses to the prosecution. Like most people I thought that to shoot one person dead was unfortunate, but to be accused of murder […]

One soldier’s war

The Boston Globe runs a Q&A with soldier-turned-author Arkady Babchenko. As an 18 year draftee he fought with the Russian Army in 1995 in the First Chechen War. In 1999, he volunteered to fight in the Second Chechen War. “One Soldier’s War” is his account of his experiences. Babchenko lives in Moscow and now works […]

Prominent Iraqi journalist shot

From the International Federation of Journalists, President of the Iraqi Union of Journalists in Baghdad, Shihab Al-Timimi, 75, is in hospital in critical but stable condition after his car was hit by a hail of bullets in a targeted attack following a meeting of the union leadership in the Al Wazeiriyah district in the centre […]

Phoning Fallujah

One of the Iraqi journalists working for McClatchy Newspapers and blogging at “Inside Iraq” is chuffed – to say the least – that after nearly five years of waiting, the phone lines from Baghdad to Fallujah are up and running again, It will sound silly, not worth it but it made me happy, smiling and […]

Lights in Tunnels aren’t Always Good

Kofi Annan. Source: Ricardo Stuckert/ABr On Thursday the endlessly upbeat Kofi Annan, who is mediating Kenya’s peace talks, said he was beginning to see “light at the end of the tunnel”. Well it’s starting to look as if the light at the end of the tunnel is actually the light of an oncoming train. (With […]

Winners Of 2007 George Polk Awards

The George Polk Awards were announced this week. The categories change each year, but in foreign news reporting the winners are, Senior foreign correspondent Jim Sciutto, producer Angus Hines and cameraman/producer Tom Murphy for the program “ABC World News with Charles Gibson” will share the George Polk Award for Television Reporting. Last fall, Sciutto and […]

Where’s the war?

You turn up for a war and the war doesn’t show up. Frontline club member, and fellow blogger here, Ben Hammersley along with the world’s press corps didn’t find the story he was expecting in Pakistan this week, This is a strange job. Most people, upon seeing impending trouble, tend to run the other way. […]