News
Somalia’s Exiled Press Pack
Speculation continues about the fate of the western journalists kidnapped with their Somali colleagues. As usual with Somalia there are lots of different theories floating around but I learned long ago to steer clear of anyone who claims to know what’s going on so I’m not going to pass on the various titbits I am […]
Nicolas Henin nominated for Bayeux
[video:youtube:vP-mdIDezNc] Nicolas Henin, a French journalist specializing in conflict reporting, writes on his personal blog about his nomination for a Bayeux award for war correspondents for his report from Iraq int he video above, This is my second nomination at Bayeux. I was nominee for the first time in 2004, for a radio story I […]
Russian website founder Magomed Yevloyev shot dead
Magomed Yevloyev, the founder of the Ingushetiya website was arrested at gunpoint in Narzan as he stepped off a plane. He was taken into a police car where “an incident” took place… “resulting in a shooting injury to the head and he later died in hospital,” Interfax reported, A source at Ingush police said the […]
Somalia’s Exiled Press Pack
Speculation continues about the fate of the western journalists kidnapped with their Somali colleagues. As usual with Somalia there are lots of different theories floating around but I learned long ago to steer clear of anyone who claims to know what’s going on. Read more http://tinyurl.com/6xpee3.
Mexicans march for peace
Tens of thousands of people of all social classes and ages marched across Mexico Saturday (August 30th 2008) in protest against high crime levels and rising kidnappings.
Anna Politkovskaya remembered
[video:google:-1006358898865632661&ei] Investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya would have celebrated her 50th birthday today had she not been gunned down in Moscow in October 2006. Russian human rights groups intend to gather in central Moscow today to remember her, “On August 30, on the day of Anna Politkovskaya’s birthday, we want to honor her memory and again […]
Blogging from the Middle East
Jaron Gilinsky, a Jerusalem-based video journalist and editor Falafel TV, guests on Mark Glaser’s MediaShift blog this week. He discusses how blogs are helping humanize conflict in the Middle East, If you can find the good blogs, you will be exposed to a very real slice of Middle Eastern reality that wasn’t possible 10 years […]
Canadian diary from Kandahar
Canadian journalist Graham Thomson spent six weeks during the summer embedded with the members of Roto 5 – or Canada’s fifth rotation – in Afghanistan. He stayed mostly in Kandahar and surrounding districts of districts of Zhari and Panjwaii. Canwest news publishes his diary today.
The Hurt Locker
The Hurt Locker, a film about a US bomb disposal team, premieres in Venice this coming week. War correspondent Mark Boal wrote the script having been embedded with a bomb disposal team in Iraq in 2004. He talked to The Independent about the film, “These men do this every day. The demands of the job […]
How to work in Somalia
Kabir Dhanji is a Kenya-born freelance photojournalist. He’s worked in Somalia, Sudan, Uganda and Congo. He talks with Bundaberg News Mail about the particular dangers and precautions needed when working as a journalist in Somalia, “Somalia is quite unique in its dangers,” he said. “You have to be particularly well-versed in the ways of Africa, […]
Republican convention censorship?
As American eyes are focussed on the Democratic Convention, Art Hughes, of the Minnesota Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, points to a number of worrying incidents involving the seizure of cameras and video equipment in the run up to the Republican National Convention that begins on Monday, Just hours after arriving in […]
Somalia kidnap: “Things are moving positively”
Leonard Vincent, head of the Africa desk for Reporters Without Borders, talks to Canwest News Service about the plight of journalists Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan who were kidnapped in Somalia earlier this week, “Things are moving positively,” said Vincent. “It is a crucial moment and it would be very dangerous to disclose more than […]
Scooter ride too dangerous for war reporter
Lyse Doucet hits the headlines again today. The BBC, terrified the frontline war reporter would hurt herself, refused to allow her to ride a Vespa PX125 for a radio show on EU pollution policy. Simply too dangerous, “She’s been to the most dangerous war zones yet some twit with a clipboard tells her a scooter’s […]
Obama’s Kenyan Roots
Granny Sarah and a calendar featuring her grandson as she celebrates Obama’s victory over Clinton When Barack Obama burst on to the scene four years ago at the Democratic Convention in Boston he was defined as the American Dream made real. His speech focused on his African background and the goatherd father. It is a […]
Doing journalism in Lebanon
Menassat has the low down on the difficulties working in Hezbollah-controlled territory in Lebanon. Detentions and iterrogation of foreign journalists is on the rise. Haji Wafa of Hezbollah’s press office tries to explain, David Hury, a French journalist, was detained on August 12, taken to different locations and questioned for six hours about his professional […]
Dancing more dangerous than war reporting
John Sergeant, the former political editor of ITN, says he has suffered more injuries preparing for the next series of the TV show Strictly Come Dancing than he ever did as a war correspondent for the BBC, “I’ve injured both my left and right foot – more injuries than I ever had when I was […]
A look back at South Ossetia
Global Voices point us to Live Journal user photomans with photographs from Tskhinvali and a refugee camp in Vladikavkaz. They’re from mid-August, but have not been circulated throughout western media as far as I can tell. There are the, by now, familiar appeals from journalists who know no other way of contacting bloggers in the […]
Missing the humanity of the Taliban
Lyse Doucet, BBC World News reporter, a good friend of the Frontline Club, old Afghan hand and a regular at club events, spoke about reporting from Afghanistan in Edinburgh recently. She called for more of a focus on the humanity of the Afghan people in media coverage of Afghanistan, ‘What’s lacking in the coverage of […]
Dexter Filkins on reporting from Iraq
Dexter Filkins talks to readers of the New York Times about working as a war correspondent in Iraq. It’s a lengthy Q&A, but it’s worth a look for his take on working in a war zone, Q: What would be your advice for young journalists who want to cover this conflict as you have done? […]
Filming bullfights is not worth dying for
The Huamantlada pits man against beast in potentially disastrous circumstances. The annual event, which takes place in the otherwise sleepy town of Huamantla in the Mexican state of Tlaxcala, saw 24 bulls let loose in the town’s narrow, uneven streets to be confronted by locals and visitors alike – many of which had been drinking […]
Shiver me timbers
Charity press officers working on Somalia like to bemoan the fact that it is almost impossible to get stories about their country into the mainstream media. (As if somehow journalists have a duty to run stories about how much more money is needed for a country whose leaders survive by erm stealing aid money, but […]
The forgotten victims in Somalia
By now the whole newspaper reading world has heard of the Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout who was kidnapped in Somalia earlier this week. Some of the world is also aware that Australian snapper Nigel Brennan was also kidnapped at the same time. Google search on ""Amanda Lindhout" Somalia" and you get 4,070 results, there are […]
Reporting – a danger to Kurdish journalists
Reuters report on the dangers faced by Kurdish journalists working in the enclave in northern Iraq. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists about 60 Kurdish journalists “were killed, threatened, attacked, or taken to court in the first half of 2008” “In Kurdistan there is no freedom for journalists. I have proof of that — […]
CIA recruits at journalism convention
Washington Post journalist Joe Davidson reports from a media recruitment fair in Chicago. He’s a little incredulous at what he finds at “a nondescript stall… at booth number 1709”, The CIA had set up shop, wedged between recruiters for WNYC, the Portland Oregonian and the New Orleans Times-Picayune, at the Unity Journalists of Color Convention. […]
UN condemns murder of Nigerian journalist
Paul Abayomi Ogundeji, a reporter with the Nigerian newspaper ThisDay, was shot and killed in the Nigerian capital Lagos on 17 August. His killer or killers have still not been found. Simon Kolawole a colleague of Ogundeji, bemoaned the state of the justice system in such killings, Those of us who have no police escorts, […]
Freelancing on the frontline
[video:youtube:WGTKFqcyfk0] Vaughan Smith, Frontline Club founder, talks to Press TV Iran about the dangers of freelancing on the frontline in the light of the recent kidnapping of Amanda Lindhout, Nigel Brennan, their Somali driver and two Somali guards. Vaughan makes the point that most journalists who are kidnapped or killed are from the countries they […]
Taliban continue war against civilian contractors
Civilian construction companies and contractors working for the Canadians in Kandahar suffered another blow today as they were hit in an IED attack in Maiwand district, close to the Helmand border. One labourer was killed and 6 other workers were injured in the attack. The worker who was killed had just said he was going […]
War reporters with guns
There’s something a bit odd about praising a war reporter who carries a gun. In an article titled “War correspondent deserves Pulitzer Prize” in The Montgomery Advertiser, Alvin Benn talks about his colleague veteran war reporter Joe Galloway, Speaking to pilots at Maxwell Air Force Base last week, [Joe] praised actor Barry Pepper for portraying […]
Leroy Sievers dies age 53
Leroy Sievers, who worked as an embedded journalist in Iraq with Ted Koppel, has died of colon cancer age 53. Sievers covered a lot of war in his time; including Desert Storm, Rwanda, Somalia, Kosovo, El Salvador and Nicaragua. He worked for ABC News and CBS, Sievers began writing about [his experience with cancer] experience […]
Amateur bullfighting festival in Mexico ends with 23 injuries
More than 20 people were gored or injured by bulls this weekend in Huamantla in the Mexican state of Tlaxcala after taking on one of the 24 bulls let loose into the streets as part of an annual festival. The Huamantlada, which is often compared to the running of the bulls event in Pamplona, takes […]
