News
Mohammed Omer beaten unconscious
The People’s Voice reports that Mohammed Omer, the Gaza-based journalist and winner of a BAFTA award, was allegedly beaten unconscious by Israeli troops on his way back home to Gaza, My dear friend and brother Mohammed Omer returned to his native Gaza Strip on Thursday… literally unconscious and unable to speak after being beaten and […]
AP hacks win Award for cyclone coverage
The Associated Press Managing Editors Association have honoured the journalists who covered the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis in Burma with its deadline reporting award, “Neither the danger nor the difficulty stopped [Aye Aye Win, the AP’s correspondent in Yangon] or her colleagues from telling the world what happened,” the judges said. “By phone and in […]
Road trips down south
Another timely reminder of the dangers on Afghanistan’s southern ringroad. 35 police officers were suspended a couple of days ago following protests by truck drivers about police corruption and kidnappings on the road from Herat to Kandahar. Incredibly, 12 drivers were kidnapped last week on the road (and I think that that’s probably a conservative […]
School exams in Iraq
Iraqi blogs (Last of Iraqis and Healing Iraq) and interestingly a US-funded Arab radio station are reporting news of a shooting at an Iraqi school. They say at least four students were wounded when the guards of Iraq’s Education Minister, Khudhair al-Khuzai, started shooting at them. The incident occurred last Thursday during a routine visit […]
Balmy Chad Siesta
It’s hot here. So hot that by 11:00 in the morning it’s getting hard to move. I lie in my cot in my tent, snoozing in brief spurts – and, between naps, pouring bottled water on my head. It’s the temperature of half-hour-old coffee, but it’s cool as it evaporates, which it does in seconds. […]
Mexico welcomes Merida, without human rights restrictions
President Calderon on Friday welcomed the U.S. Congress’ approval of the Merida Initiative a day earlier, an aid injection from the United States which is aimed at helping Mexico in its fight against powerful drug cartels. The bill has dropped a controversial requirement that Mexico meet certain human rights standards in order to receive the […]
Changes at MexicoReporter.com
There is good news and, well, good news here at MexicoReporter.com which I wanted to tell you, my readers, for the sake of transparency. Next week, I will be start in a new job as staff blogger, investigator and video journalist for the Los Angeles Times and their Latin America blog La Plaza here in […]
Cullen comes up a thousand deutsche marks short
Kevin Cullen, columnist on the Boston Globe, remembers an incident in Montenegro with Dave Lynch, a reporter for USA Today, and how the BBC hoodwinked them out of a seat on the plane to Serbia, We found ourselves in a seedy bar in Podgorica, the gray capital of Montenegro, asking for a gangster named Momo. […]
Lara Logan and the death of foreign news coverage
It’s desperately ironic that one week Lara Logan bemoans the abysmal state of the US media coverage of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. While, one week later, she finds herself the target of more media coverage than both wars combined. But Why? She didn’t start another war, did she? No, well not really. She is […]
Breaking Burma
nargis77_g, originally uploaded by TZA. When Cyclone Nargis hit Burma on May 2 the BBC managed to get a succession of journalists into the country despite a ban on the broadcasting corporation from entering the country. The BBC World Service talk to the journalists who made it into the country and asks them how they […]
Milblogger bites the dust for writing ‘too much unfiltered truth’
LT G, author of Kaboom: A Soldier’s War Journal, says he will have to stop updating his milblog with immediate effect. In a post entitled ‘Tactical Pause‘, LT G explains that although he ‘committed no OPSEC violations’, ‘extenuating circumstances’ meant a post he wrote on 28 May did not go through the ‘normal vetting channels’. […]
Mexico City police official to be charged in bar deaths
The police commander who led a botched raid on a Mexico City nightclub will be charged with 12 counts of homicide, one for each person who died in the crush at the bar’s entrance, prosecutors said Wednesday. The Associated Press reports this morning City Atty. Gen. Rodolfo Felix Cardenas said his office was bringing the […]
Frontline Club live – Making it pay
Live tonight from the Frontline Club, 7.30pm UK time. A debate about the economic model for online newspapers. Follow the livestream here. More information below, UPDATE: Here’s the recording of this event. And here are some images. As the internet fast becomes the dominant medium for news delivery, we look at the relationships between print […]
It’s What Jesus Would Have Wanted
Dungu Bridge, one of the structures left behind by Belgian rule in the Congo OK, I give in. The Church – and the Catholic Church in particular – has its uses. I’d prefer the poor of Africa to spend their money on themselves rather than giving it to their priests. But that’s an argument I’m […]
Many journalists are now ‘war’ reporters
“Meanwhile, for journalists in many countries, any distinction between peace and wartime reporting has become meaningless. If they’re investigating corruption or powerful vested interests, drug dealing or organised crime, they’re always on the frontline.” Kate Allen, The Director of Amnesty International UK, on the perils of human rights journalism.
New job for Lara Logan
Lara Logan, CBS Chief foreign correspondent, is set to switch jobs and location. She will move from London to Washington D.C. Her new role will be Chief foreign affairs correspondent. However, she will still cover the war in Iraq and cover stories elsewhere, “She will still travel all over the world, but she will based […]
David Axe on Radio 5 Live
Chris Vallance, presenter of BBC Radio 5 Live’s Pods and Blogs show, interviews David Axe in Chad. You can hear the report here and you can follow David’s trip on the border of Sudan on his Frontline blog. To listen direct click here – I think this link is good for one week or so […]
Runaway Tent!
Fair access to water and firewood are big motivators in rebellions in Chad, Central African Republic and the Darfur region of Sudan, according to Alain Lapierre, a manager with aid group CARE International. Indeed, these two things are never far from the minds of the 18,000 North Darfuri refugees in Iridima and the original residents […]
Mogadishu Redux
Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, is the focus of the country’s downward spiral. The constant threat from all sides means that travel around the city is always to run a gauntlet, everyone’s senses heightened from the fear and adrenaline as one watches for ambushes or Iraq-style IEDs. Very few journalists have visited Somalia in recent months on […]
Mexico nightclub tragedy caused by inept police and an ignored youth, says youth advocate
This was written for La Plaza, the Los Angeles Times blog dedicated to Latin America. A tragedy in Mexico City last weekend, in which 12 people were suffocated or trampled to death in a bungled police raid at the News Divine night club, was due to an inept police force and a lack of public […]
More trouble in Chad
Finbarr O’Reilly, Reuters snapper and World Press photo 2006 winner, is currently in Chad. He found himself in a spot of bother as he haretails it through the desert of the eastern part of the country. Harsh light and shifting shadows in the windblown desert of eastern Chad can conjure strange images, but this was […]
Surprise find in Baghdad
Somewhat startling news that Lee Abrams, chief innovation officer at the Tribune company, is surprised to find the Tribune group – which includes some 11 newspapers and various broadcast outlets – has a reporter in Iraq for the LA Times. In an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic he wonders why the paper doesn’t […]
Zimbabwe in slides
TIME publish a slideshow of images from Zimbabwe on the eve of the “run off election” set for tomorrow. Click the image above to see 15 images from Zimbabwe in recent days.
The Inquirer Award 2008
Richard Makepeace, the British Consul General in Jerusalem, today launched The Inquirer Award 2008 which aims to celebrate the very best in investigative reporting from the Middle East. The award will be managed by Thomson Foundation, Print and television journalists will compete for The Inquirer Award 2008 which aims to find the journalist who can […]
Reporting Zimbabwe
The Committee to Protect Journalists produce an audio slideshow of journalists discussing the difficulties of reporting from Zimbabwe and the great risks involved for little or even no money. The slideshow is an accompaniment to a larger article entitled Bad to worse published today ahead of the June 27 “run-off” election, “We can’t go to […]
Sean Langan freed
Sean Langan, regular at the Frontline Club and an award winning Channel 4 reporter who works on Dispatches, was freed yesterday after a three month kidnap ordeal in a deal forged by his family, “We are absolutely thrilled that Sean is back in the UK and free,” they said. “We can’t thank Channel 4 enough […]
Calderon should accept Merida’s human right conditions?
In anticipation of the scheduled debate around the controversial Merida Initiative aid package in the US Senate this week, the Financial Times newspaper from the UK urges President Felipe Calderon to accept the human rights conditions attached to the US$400 billion injection aimed at helping Mexico fights its drugs barons. But should he?
Trouble in Abeche
Frontline blogger David Axe and photographer Anne Holmes think they’re onto a story when they hear gunfire in the Chadian city Abeche. The story appears to have been little more than a misunderstanding that finds David in the wrong place at the wrong time, We’d seen plenty of shooting and lots of soldiers, but no […]
War reporting is too expensive
[video:youtube:CT-Hq117w8s] Following on from Lara Logan’s broadside on the American media coverage of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars – the CBS Chief Foreign Correspondent said she would “blow her brains out” if she had to watch what passed for news in the US – The New York Times follows up with a round up of […]
Mohammed Omer makes it to London
BAFTA award winner Mohammed Omer, journalist and Gaza Correspondent for the Washington Report accepted his award in London at the weekend. To say Mohammed had a difficult journey out of Gaza to the awards is something of an understatement. Click the image above to watch Mohammed’s acceptance speech introduced by John Pilger. via The People’s […]
