News
Vaughan Smith up for a Guardian gong
OK. Here’s some great news. Club founder and journalist whizz of the old school, Vaughan Smith, is up for a gong at the inaugural Media Guardian Innovation Awards, or MEGAs, for his live blogging, video reports, twittering and picture taking from the frontline on this very blog. He is up against two other blogs in […]
Close up of a peace agreement
Choice observations upon examination of the recent peace agreement in eastern Congo: Percentage of signatories using green pens: 0.05 Missing from the multimedia archives: audio file of the collective sigh of relief by 1,200 delegates when they heard, after several hours of speculation-filled delay, that the document had been signed. Number of days from signature […]
Flower power photographer dies
Photographer Bernie Boston has died at his home after a long battle with amyloidosis, a rare blood disease. He was 74. His flower power picture was a Pulitzer Prize runner up. Among several honors, “Flower Power” was named No. 30 on a list of the 100 greatest war photos of all times, Bob Brown, a […]
Missing what’s important
In an interview Salam Adil at the excellent blog aggregator, Global Voices, sums up the limitations of the mainstream media working in Iraq, Many times the mainstream media, by sheer virtue of being a foreign organisation, completely misses what is important. Blogs can fill in these gaps or provide insight into what is happening that […]
“Journalists are fair game”
Terry Anderson, the Associated Press war correspondent held hostage in Lebanon for six years during the 1980’s, speaks out about the present day safety situation for journalists, “[Iraq] is the most dangerous war that journalists have ever covered, by far,” Anderson said. “Eighty percent of the murders of journalists around the world are never investigated. […]
Bonegrinders
[video:youtube:nzK4qyArD1A] Not quite sure what to make of this… Bonegrinders is a play by Melody Von Smith and it opens on 22 February at the Road Less Traveled Theater, Buffalo, New York and runs until mid-March. According to the spiel, Bonegrinders is the story of a war journalist that returns home after his best friend/fellow […]
The Revolution Fades
The tangerine sunlight, deepening and sweetening as dusk approaches, strokes the peeling stucco of Havana’s colonial ruins, every doorway teeming with life, every window framing faces and pouring out music. But what everyone knows – every leather-skinned believer in the revolution, every velvet-skinned chica strutting her stuff, every vested old man slapping dominoes onto a […]
Joe Sacco podcast
Like a cross between cartoonist R. Crumb and international correspondents such as CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Sacco’s comics are a personal narrative that feels inseparable from the dangerous places he visits. link That’s how Brian Libby describes war cartoonist Joe Sacco on Oregon Live. Sacco has an exhibition running at Pacific Northwest College of Art until […]
Journalism centre for Qatar
Reporters Without Borders and the Emirate of Qatar are working together to create a new center for journalists in dire situations. The centre will open in Doha, Qatar by next March, The center is expected to have a medical facility and temporary accommodation for Arab and Muslim journalists who have been injured or are under […]
Carsten Thomassen laid to rest
Norwegians said a final farewell to the journalist Carsten Thomassen today. He was murdered, along with six others, at the Serena hotel in Kabul last week. The Norwegian Foreign minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, who was also in the Serena when Thomassen was killed spoke at the funeral, “Carsten was living proof that a free press […]
Back to Vietnam
Philip Jones Griffith was talking about his photographic work at the Frontline club tonight. He focussed on Vietnam. The hall was rammed and it was standing room only. Philip ran through some of his most famous photographs beginning with the start of the Vietnam war up until around 2002. The pictures were drawn from nearly […]
Pizza in Kabul
Kabul hillside, originally uploaded by zedwards. Jean Mackenzie at the Institute for War and Peace reporting tells us how easy it is these days to grab a pizza in Kabul, Friday night at Boccacio, formerly known as Villa Villebita. Remember the old days? You would show up, desperate for the best pizza in town, a […]
Kenyan crackdown
Shashank Bengali works for McClatchy newspapers and is based in Nairobi. He blogged about recent events in Kenya and took a number of snaps of the local media on the job recording what was happening. Here’s the clip for the snap above, Photog gets a closeup of the police van that was firing teargas and […]
From doctor to journalist
An Iraqi doctor, now a student at Ball State University in the United States, is giving the world one of its first glimpses inside a Baghdad hospital. The Star Press says, Omer Salih Mahdi “puts a human face on the destruction caused by bombs that rip through Baghdad streets,” A year before he began filming […]
His name is Rio
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, nov.07, originally uploaded by kaysha. Brazil-based foreign correspondent Bill Hinchberger talks to BrazilMax about his two decades as a correspondent in the South American country, I’ve long maintained that I’ll only believe that Brazil is serious about attacking corruption, impunity and the generalized disrespect like the Gerson Law (from the […]
Marcus on MediaStorm, Fred on the frontline
Marcus Bleasdale emails to tell us about a stunning new multimedia package he has produced for MediaStorm. It’s called Rape of a Nation. It includes Marcus’ incredible black and white photographs, interviews with the photographer and video footage. You can watch the 12 minute production by clicking the video above or visiting the MediaStorm site […]
Enjoy your stay
J. Malcolm Garcia writes a lengthy piece in the Virginia Quarterly Review about his recent return to Afghanistan and his impressions since he was last there in October, 2004. The Spin Ghar hotel in Jalalabad, a popular hangout for ex-Taliban commanders, offered a warm welcome.
Partytime in Ramadi
Peter Carlson scans through the magazines for the Washington Post and finds an article in the Virginia Quarterly Review by David J. Morris, a marine veteran turned journalist/college teacher. Morris returned to Ramadi in October. The reception he got this time around was quite different from the first time he arrived in the summer of […]
Blackberry at the ready
This week’s ‘My Week’ column in the Press Gazette is written by Paula Newton, CNN International security correspondent, as she heads out to Kenya. Although, despite being a security correspondent, she seems to have snubbed inflight security procedures with excessive Blackberry use on approach to Kisumu airport, As we flew into Kisumu in western Kenya […]
Best part of three years embedded
You might not agree with the way he sees things in Iraq, but Michael Yon has spent longer there than any other reporter. Three years and holding. Yet, he’s not strictly a reporter. He’s an embedded blogger and he has a transparent agenda. The New York Times profiles Yon, [Yon] does not work for any […]
A marriage made in Baghdad
A husband and wife war reporting team tell of the battles they’ve seen and the battles they’ve had in the New York Times, “It’s just mortars,†I told her. In fact, I wasn’t sure about the cause, which Diana could immediately see. “Stop trying to protect me,†she snapped. “Just be honest.†It was a […]
Can compromises bring peace at last?
Did you know that eastern Congo gets struck by lightning more often than anywhere else in the world? It’s usually preferable to agree some sort of ceasefire before holding formal talks. Suspending hostilities – however temporarily – is the polite thing to do. It builds confidence, sets the tone, and helps the concentration. But no […]
Alan Johnston back at work
Alan Johnston gets back to work today. He’ll be the new presenter of From Our Own Correspondent for BBC World Service. Kate Adie, who currently presents the BBC Radio 4 version which is aimed at a British audience, will continue to present that edition. The Press Gazette has more, Commenting on his new job, Johnston […]
You know you’re breaking new ground…
…when situations arise for which there are no rules. Whilst editing my latest video the Los Angeles Times last week, we contacted CNN Espanol for some footage of Carmen Aristegui, the focus of our video report. They agreed to send over some shots, but in return the producer wanted some of our material on the […]
A new kind of foreign coverage?
A year ago the Boston Globe newspaper closed its last three foreign bureaux. The closures followed the axing of four foreign correspondents from the Daily Telegraph in September 2006. Writing in the Washington Post, Pamela Constable summed up the misery: “Between 2002 and 2006, the number of foreign-based newspaper correspondents shrank from 188 to 141… […]
About men who kill
“On that day they were chasing each other round with body parts and they thought it was very funny. It was their way of surviving it.†The hard truth is that the US marines are good at killing and rejoice in it. Their training instils a terrible indifference to killing. Their whole spirit reinforces each […]
Arctic motoring – 19/01/08
The temperature hovered around minus twenty, and the roads were layered in ice. But even at two in the morning the car rental agent in the bowels of Ted Stevens international airport at Anchorage managed a pearly smile. Perhaps it had something to do with the financial knife he was holding at my neck. “Oh, […]
Loss of news talk show dismays Mexicans
Supporters of journalist Carmen Aristegui say the cancellation of her radio program poses a threat to the country’s move toward greater democracy. Please click here for the news story and its complementing video, courtesy of Mexico Reporter.com [video:bliptv:615272]
Martin Bell puts boot in
Former BBC foreign correspondent and man in white suit MP Martin Bell puts the boot into the media obsession with the Madeleine McCann story describing it as “necro-news” But that’s not all, He went on to say the Six O’Clock News was being presented by the “auto-cutie on duty”. He then turned his fire on […]
Creighton Burns
The former editor of The Age, Creighton Burns, died yesterday in Cabrini Hospital, Australia aged 82. Burns served eight years as editor of The Age from 1981 to 1989. In 1991 he received the Order of Australia. He joinied The Age in 1964 as a foreign correspondent, serving in Singapore, Vietnam and the United States, […]
