News
“Working in Somalia is a death sentence”
Following the shutdown of three popular radio stations in Somalia in recent weeks, freelance photojournalist Salah Mohammed Adde was arrested on 15 November by plain clothes officers at the Banadir Football Stadium in north Mogadishu. According to IFEX, Salah was taking pictures of the demonstrators, who were expressing support for security operations carried out by […]
“The most dangerous war in the history of journalism”
The Indepedent reports on the grim landmark reached this week. More than 200 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the beginning of the war in March, 2003. The Independent compares this to previous wars, Two were killed in the First World War, 68 in the Second, 77 in Vietnam and 36 in the Balkans… […]
Inside Out – November 07
One of the most important debates in journalism is far from over at the Frontline Club. It’s about whether the war in Iraq and the dangerous conflicts in Somalia and Gaza and elsewhere have made it nearly impossible for correspondents and news teams working for “western” news media to do their jobs. In recent months, […]
Pakistan Teeters
“We’re watching a lot of cookery programmes and cricket!” cried one of my oldest Pakistani friends when I arrived at her house a week after General Pervez Musharraf’s declaration of emergency rule. All Pakistan’s private news channels were taken off air on Saturday November 3rd when the general announced his second coup. Yet fuzzy TV […]
3 Para
British Paras are renowned more for prowess on the battlefield than media savvy. However, that reputation may need to be revised with the publication of 3 Para by Patrick Bishop. This book is an account of 3 Para Battle Group’s tour in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, last year. Throughout their six months on the ground, […]
French Century – An Illustrated history of Modern France
Brian Moynahan was the Sunday Times roving correspondent in the years before Rupert Murdoch bought the paper and turned it into the mail order catalogue that Don McCullin called it under the editorship of Andrew Neil. (McCullin’s public observation was undoubtedly the reason Neil fired him, although war photography and investigative reporting were anyway not […]
Story behind the snap
Photographer Luis Sinco tells the story of the image he took of Marine Lance Corporal James Blake Miller as the soldier’s regiment entered Falluja on 8 November 2004, On the second day of the battle, I called my wife by satellite phone to tell her that I was OK. She told me my photo had […]
Balkans smouldering again
The Balkans are back in the news again – Kosovo is set to declare independence, Serbian paramilitaries are threatening to ‘protect’ the province, in Bosnia people are said to be stockpiling food in fear of a resurgence of violence. I recently went to Serbia soon after a fairly prolonged trip to Iraq and Afghanistan and […]
Hillary’s Comeback
It would make a great film, but it makes an even better story: the wife of a former president, humiliated by his philandering and lies in office, is poised to succeed him, and in the process become the first female head of state in the world’s sole superpower. The resurrection of Hillary Clinton from embattled […]
Working the warzones
The Frontline Club may have been away from home territory when it ventured to New York last month, but the spirit of debate that has come to characterise its London events made the trans-Atlantic trip admirably. About 200 people gathered at Brooklyn’s Powerhouse Arena on Nov 13 for a vigorous debate on the theme: Is […]
Lester Ziffren 1906-2007
Lester Ziffren, who covered the Spanish Civil War for United Press, has died at the very fine age of 101. Before his death he was believed to be the oldest surviving employee of United Press. The Quad City Times has this interesting snippet from his reporting of the civil war, “Deadline Every Minute,†a 1957 […]
From the 2007 Kurt Schork Awards
[video:youtube:Yl7VqDix1yI] A brief snippet of the 2007 Kurt Schork Awards ‘do at the Frontline Club on the 14th November. Full video should be coming soon here… UPDATE: And here it is.
Witness expands into citizen journalism
Witness, the human rights organization co-founded by Peter Gabriel, launched an online community portal last week aimed at encouraging citizen journalists out there to pick up their cameras and bear witness. The move is evidence of how journalism is becoming incerasing blurred with activism in the ever-expanding multi-media world. The Hub is aimed at encouraging […]
On the New York Frontline
Some feedback coming through from the recent Is it over for Frontline Reporting? Frontline Club event in Brooklyn, New York including this from Hell’s Kitchener about what Robert Fisk had to say during the panel, “The New York Times actually lives in a fortress with Iraqi guards with ‘New York Times’ on their t-shirts,†Fisk […]
Branding battlefield journalism
In the wake of recent reporting from Afghanistan the popular Defence of the Realm blog suggests the Ministry of Defence brand battlefield journalism, The MoD could get press organs to sponsor different battles, encouraged by opportunities to place their logos on the armoured vehicles and advertising slogans on personal armour. The Sun would really go […]
Back to basics
Raghida Dergham, columnist and senior diplomatic correspondent for the pan-Arab daily Al Hayat, spoke recently about her experience as a female, arab journalist. In among the big name reminiscences and Davos schmoozing come some insights into the current state of journalism, This a “very confused time in journalism  we need to hang on to the […]
Mexican reform to change relationship between media and Government
A new electoral reform goes into effect in Mexico today that aims to redefine the relationship between the country’s major broadcasters and the government, and to level the political playing field. The changes to the constitution could help improve the quality of media editorial in Mexico, and help it to become more politically independent than […]
2007 Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism
Just in case it had slipped your notice, but tonight the Frontline Club will be hosting the 2007 Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism, This year’s winners are the late Sahar Al-Haideri, an Iraqi freelance journalist and IWPR trainee who paid the ultimate price for her commitment to journalism – and German freelancer Mario Kaiser […]
Check the register
Sherif Samaha, the manager of the “popular postwar hang-out for journalists” – the Mayflower Hotel in Beirut – is suing The Independent newspaper over an article by Robert Fisk, After Samaha’s initial complaint, the reference to the hotel was removed from the story published on its website, Secret armies pose sinister new threat to Lebanon. […]
Comicbook journalism
War reporter cartoonist Joe Sacco is interviewed in the Star Tribune. Socca has cartooned from Palestine to Bosnia and, most recently, Iraq, I certainly wondered how seriously I would be taken when I started “Palestine.” First of all, comics at the time were still dismissed by the mainstream. And comics about Palestinians? Here was a […]
Rageh goes underworld
Former BBC foreign correspondent Rageh ‘Scud stud’ Omar starts a new series called Crime Invasion: Britain’s New Underworld with Virgin 1 TV channel, “The show’s got a lot of edge to it. We hope viewers will look at it and say ‘Oh my God, did you see that on TV?’” says Celia Taylor, director of […]
In the footsteps of William Howard Russell
Richard Beeston at The Times heads to Crimea in the footsteps of William Howard Russell, a war reporter of the 150 year old school, It is almost impossible for today’s reporter to witness and record more than a snap-shot of the whole picture… Not so for Billy Russell, as he was known by the troops, […]
Against all odds
UNHCR steps into the gaming world with an online game that allows you – the gamer – to experience what it’s like to be a refugee. To beat the game, called Against all odds, you’ll need to escape a hostile town, guide your character over dodgy borders and stay alive in foreign countries. via BBC […]
Aid dependency
Glenda Cooper writes a column in The Guardian about the changing face of foreign news reporting, telling titled From their own correspondent. She argues, convincingly, that the general public are, and always were, more likely to be the first on the scene at any major news event before the press ranks and aid workers arrive. […]
Drug-cartels kill journalists, says CPJ. But what about the Government?
Drug-fuelled violence against the press in Mexico is spreading. A report released yesterday by the Committee to Protect Journalists says more journalists are being killed or persecuted whilst covering the drug trade and the powerful Gulf and Sinaloa cartels in the country. But the research from the NGO fails to address the high levels of […]
Two journalists attacked in Cuernavaca, say reports
Reports are surfacing in Mexico today that two journalists in the city of Cuernavaca, Morelos, were detained and one of them abused by state police over the weekend. CENCOS (Centro Nacional de Comunicación Social) is circulating a release stating that journalists Óscar López and Ariel RamÃrez Arrieta, of the cultural publication “El Perro Azul”, were […]
Crowdsourcing at the Club
The Guardian’s Roy Greenslade will be posing questions to Robert Thomson, Editor of The Times, at the Frontline Club tonight and, in a very Web2.0, crowd sourcing, wisdom of the oiks manner, he’s looking for your questions. Some questions already coming in, Do you think think that Rupert Murdoch’s influence over the news media should […]
Conpiracy surrounds Saipov
Journalist Alisher Saipov working in southern Kyrgyzstan was gunned down on the evening of October 24th. The Institute for War and Peace reporting has more details and discussion, Saipov, 26, was killed by three gunshots on the evening of October 24 in the centre of Osh, the major city in the south of Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyzstan, […]
GLAMOUR women
CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan battles here phobia for crappy women’s mags to step up and accept a GLAMOUR ‘woman of the year’ award for 2007. Logan apparently had a change of heart when she discovered the magazine was also helping to fund charities like Empowering Hands, “How can you show people reality […]
AP does war and peace
John Daniszewski, International Editor at the Associated Press and veteran foreign correspondent with 20 years of experience in the bank together with a Romanian revolution gunshot wound in the arm contributes to a new book. The title requires a deep breath… The Associated Press-Breaking News: How the Associated Press Has Covered War, Peace, and Everything […]
