News
Foreign Office elbow World Service to drop pirate report
A BBC World Service report by Mary Harper has been pulled after a request by the Foreign Office last Sunday. In the report Harper talked to Somali pirates holding the Sirius Star and its captain. The Guardian reports the FCO asked the service to pull the slot as “it claimed that after each broadcast the […]
Mexico media campaign targets violence against journalists
Frontline blogger Deborah Bonello writes about a media campaign in Mexico aimed at raising public awareness about violence against journalists. Mexico is one of the most dangerous places to work as a journalist, Since 2000, 28 journalists have been killed in Mexico and eight have disappeared, according to Article 19, one of the organizations sponsoring […]
Dreams from the White House
Granny Sarah and a calendar featuring her grandson as she celebrates Obama’s victory over Clinton It’s been another good week for The Times’ coverage of Obama’s ascent to the White House. Just before election day we tracked down his aunt, who was living in a rundown Boston estate, prompting allegations that we were some sort […]
Thinking of going to Somalia?
Well if you are, Rob has some sage advice… and be sure to read the comments. Frontline bloggers David and Alex both blogged from Somalia earlier this year. I hope they don’t go back for a while. Not sure my nerves could take it.
Politkovskaya suspect offered to surrender
Rustam Makhmudov, the main suspect in the murder of Anna Politkovskaya outside her Moscow apartment building in 2006, offered to turn himself in six months ago according to a lawyer for the suspect’s brother, Six months ago, Makhmudov passed a message through his relatives from an undisclosed location that he would turn himself in if […]
Fixers are vital
Marcel Berlins, former lawyer now journalist and columnist, attended screening of The Fixer at the Frontline Club recently and writes about the importance of their “unsung” role in foreign news reporting. You only have to look at the fate of the fixers in Somalia working with Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan to see the danger […]
How to Plan a Trip to Somalia
From time to time I am asked by big-name foreign correspondents whether it is safe to visit Somalia. Often it seems as if I am the 27th person they have called as they try to find the one person who says: “Ah, sure you’ll be fine.” Sometimes they do actually listen to my advice but […]
Ibrahim Essa wins 2008 Gebran Tueni Award
Ibrahim Essa, editor of Al Dustour, has won the 2008 Gebran Tueni Award. The annual award honours Gebran Tueni, the Lebanese publisher who was killed in a Beirut car bomb in 2005 and is presented by the World Association of Newspapers and aims to recognise an editor or publisher in the Arab region, Al Dustour […]
Spotlight on dog overpopulation and abuse in Mexico
Still on the doggy theme of last week here on La Plaza, a documentary screening in Mexico City over the weekend focused on how Mexico deals with the thousands of stray dogs roaming its streets. And no, it did not paint a pretty picture.
From the Frontline to Fish n Chips
[video:youtube:sUhSBTCuGCk] I blame this post on Frontline blogger Rob Crilly. The Nairobi-based, Africa-wandering, freelance hack has taken it upon himself to sample the African take on Fish n Chips wherever he finds it on the continent. Whether it be good, bad, indifferent or possibly dangerous, Rob has kinda foolishly given himself the task of blogging […]
Update on the Amanda Lindhout kidnap in Somalia
Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan are safe and still being held in Somalia according to Reporters Without Borders. The two journalists were kidnapped in August along with their Somali fixers. A ransom deadline, for an alleged $2.5 million, passed a month ago. “What we can confirm is they are fine, in the same place and […]
50% of UK media jobs to go by 2013
[video:youtube:vpAdAG8ktAk] Robert Andrews has a thoroughly depressing (but realistic?) post up on the excellent media watch blog PaidContent about the number of job lay offs forecast for the UK media industry in the near future. “We calculated the total jobs in the media in the UK at about 400,000 … at the end of 2007. […]
Norman Macswan dies age 91
Norman Macswan, who worked as a war correspondent, foreign correspondent and was the associate editor of the Australian Associated Press (AAP) has died aged 91. After covering the Korean War in the early 1950s he worked in London, Jakarta, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and New York before returning to Australia as a senior editor in the […]
Ivan Watson discusses life In Baghdad
NPR reporter Ivan Watson, who narrowly escaped a car bomb yesterday, will be discussing life in Baghdad live on the NPR site today at 12PM EST or 5pm UK time. Watson reported the attack in audio, text and video on NPR Baghdad Reporter, Suddenly, Iraqi soldiers ran up screaming “bomb” in Arabic and pointing at […]
Testing times for Croatian journalists
[video:youtube:7f6AyehCFJQ] Amnesty International call upon the Croatian authorities to address the threats to journalists. In October Ivo Pukanić, the editor of the Nacional Magazine, and a colleague were both killed in a car bomb explosion in central Zagreb. The assassination shocked the nation, yet the situation has not improved. Well-known journalist Drago Hedl continues to […]
Amira Hass held for entering Gaza
Amira Hass, a reporter with Haaretz, was detained by the Sderot police last night for allegedly entering the Gaza Strip without a permit. She was stopped while returning from Gaza heading back to Israel, Chief Superintendent Shimon Nahmani, commander of the Sderot police station, said Hass had entered Gaza by sea three weeks ago. Hass […]
Peter Lloyd sentenced to ten months
Peter Lloyd, the foreign correspondent arrested in Singapore in July on drugs charges, has been sentenced to ten months in Prison. The New Delhi-based correspondent received eight months in prison for possession and consumption of methamphetamine and an additional two months for “possessing drug paraphernalia stained with ketamine”, Lloyd’s reaction to the sentence could not […]
Kurimanzutto opens doors to new art gallery in Mexico City
The beautiful people were out in force on Saturday afternoon in Mexico City for the opening of the new Kurimanzutto contemporary art gallery in the San Miguel de Chapultepec neighborhood. Cool young Mexicans mixed with a manicured, international crowd; back-combed hair and skinny jeans mingled with manicured, slender women, over-sized glasses and fake gold handbags. […]
LIVE event: World AIDS Day – Have we seen the worst?
[video:bliptv:1536730] We are marking World AIDS Day at the Frontline Club tonight with a discussion that asks the question: Have we seen the worst? Taking part will be Professor Robin Shattock, from St. George’s, Michael Bartos of UNAIDS, Thandi Haruperi who works with RestorEgo/EATG and Anton Kerr from the International HIV/AIDS Alliance. Chairing the discussion […]
The creeping casualisation of war reporting
The NUJ’s Jeremy Dear called for an end to the “casualisation of war reporting” in light of the Kate Peyton case. Kate, a BBC producer, was killed in Mogadishu in 2005. The inquest into her death concluded in Ipswich Crown Court last week. The coroner, Dr Peter Dean called on managers “to recognise that staff […]
I wish I had a gun and not a camera
Sebastian D’Souza, picture editor at The Mumbai Mirror talks to The Independent about how he first heard the shooting and ran out of his office, opposite Chhatrapati Shivaji train station, to photograph the suspected terrorists during the attacks in Mumbai last week, “I ran into the first carriage of one of the trains on the […]
Journalists narrowly avoid Baghdad car bomb
NPR reporter Ivan Watson and three Iraqi colleagues are just about the luckiest journalists in Iraq today. A bomb attached to their vehicle exploded on a Baghdad street on Sunday – without them in it. Watson, and his producer and translator Ali Hamdani, were interviewing people at a roadside kebab shop when the bomb was […]
Aziz Popal tells his kidnap story
Aziz Popal, a Kandahar-based reporter with Hewad TV in Afghanistan, was kidnapped by the Taliban last week and released three days later. He talked with Graeme Smith from The Globe & Mail about the ordeal, “I’m shaking as I’m telling you the story,” Mr. Popal said by telephone last night. “They didn’t beat us. But […]
Nothing comes close to Bosnia
Christiane Amanpour talks to The Guardian about her upcoming TV show, The Amanpour Hour, in the United States. The Guardian describes the CNN foreign correspondent through American eyes, For many Americans, Amanpour’s arrival at a story wearing her take on the 1970s foreign correspondent safari suit – a boxy jacket with two large pockets over […]
Clifford Derrick reporting Kenyan election violence
Video journalist Clifford Derrick talks to The Mail & Guardian about how he reported the election violence in Kenya that began on December 27, 2007, He decided to set up base in the slums to record the story. It was a distinctly dangerous choice. “On three occasions cops threatened me. One came up and said […]
Court order to free Ibrahim Jassam Mohammed
Ibrahim Jassam Mohammed, a freelance photographer who works for Reuters and Iraqi media outlets, has been held by US Army in Iraq since early September. An Iraqi court ruled on Sunday that there is no evidence against Mohammed and he must be released, “I’m pleased to learn that a court ordered Ibrahim Jassam released as […]
Panicked Solutions
I wrote this oped with a colleague of mine in the hope it might get some coverage and – in part – help to stop the long march towards tribal militias that are being proposed as a ‘solution’ for Afghanistan. Nobody took it, so we thought we’d put it up here…
Gregory Warner talks chicken
Gregory Warner headed to the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan to work on a story about smuggling. He hooks up with his Afghan fixer, the oddly named JD, and the smuggling story soon becomes a story about a chicken and an amulet. Head over to This American Life and listen to the first fifteen minute […]
Nkunda’s At It Again
It’s 10 days or so since I left Goma and I see that it remains business as usual. A bunch of thugs are still trying to hold an equally thuggish government to ransom and the media continues to give General Laurent Nkunda far more credit than he’s due… General Nkunda and UN special envoy, Olusegun […]
Why bother?
Molly Kaplan talks to three war reporters about why they do it. Of the three, regular readers and Frontline Club members will know John D. McHugh and Vaughan Smith. Less familiar may be Hiwa Osman from the IWPR. Molly asked the three to talk to students at the London College of Journalism about their thoughts […]
