News
Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism 2008
Freelance journalists Dahr Jamail and Mohammed Omer share the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism 2008. There’s more on the press release, Dahr Jamail’s unembedded reporting from Iraq, Lebanon and Syria has allowed us to understand the conflict in the Middle East not from a “Western†point of view (although he himself is American), but from […]
Blowing it
David Viggars continues his tale of how he became a news photographer on the Reuters photographers blog. He was working as a newbie in Rome when he went to report on the aftermath of an earthquake in southern Italy and how ‘missing the story’ taught him not to miss it again, I blew it. I […]
From propaganda to the press
The story of Haider Hamza, an Iraqi Ministry of Information teenage propaganda stooge, who eventually became a Reuters reporter soon after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. This American Life produce this fascinating story, well worth a listen, When he was a teenager, Haider Hamza worked in the Iraqi Ministry of Information. He was specially trained […]
To the End of Hell
“A pure product of colonialism” with a French father of Indian origin and a Vietnamese mother, Denise Affonço could have used her French passport to escape the Khmer Rouge in 1975. Twenty-seven years after the Khmer Rouge were overthrown by the Vietnamese, thoughts of “what might have been” thread through these harrowing memoirs, recently translated […]
The Man Who Pushed America to War: The Extraordinary Life, Adventures and Obsessions of Ahmad Chalabi
Read this. It’s sober, well written and ruthlessly forensic about Ahmad Chalabi’s business affairs and propaganda operations. NBC correspondent Aram Roston has read everything about Chalabi on the public record, and he has spoken at length with many of Chalabi’s family and long-term supporters. His finest chapters describe how Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress supplied the […]
31 very interesting things: 3. Still or Sparkling
[video:youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71v5IYY0Vyk] Funniest moment in a recent British sitcom, surely. Right up there with Del Boy falling through the bar. And look closely and you might spot a miserable bird who bears a familial resemblance to me.
It’s not all Glamour You Know
It’s difficult to know exactly what my interviewee thought as I broke off from a question about Prince William’s attire with a quick “Uh I’m going to be sick” before vomiting into a wastepaper bin. But it would have taken a glass-half-full type of chap to conclude she hadn’t noticed anything amiss. The only saving […]
Flying low
John D. McHugh’s latest installment in The Guardian today details his move to an outpost of Speray in Khowst province about 900 metres from the Pakistan border I managed to get the back seat, the one that photographers always want. This is because in a Chinook there is a rear ramp, and as the pilots […]
Making a one man documentary
Filmmaker Matt Clift talks about how he went about making a one man documentary film about an orphanage in Uganda in 2007. He details the problems he had, the equipment he used and offers a number of tips for wannabe filmmakers working in difficult environments, Where I was going there was no option for going […]
World Press Photo interviews
Very impressive series of multimedia interviews for the World Press Photo Awards. via MediaStorm
Getting into Burma
Saigon based photographer Kevin German was in Bangkok hanging outside the Myanmar Embassy with some other… tourists waiting to see whether their visas would arrive or not. Obviously there are jour——s there. Brave jour——s. It is becoming more and more dangerous for them to work there. The imagery is finally beginning to show the desperate […]
John D. McHugh in the Guardian
I’m reliably informed Frontline Club member John D. McHugh has a big spread in the Guardian newspaper tomorrow. The piece will run online too, but it might be worth grabbing the papier mache version if you have access to a newstand near you. A wee bit of background, courtesy of the Guardian, for those of […]
Media victory in Iraq
Sociologist Andrew M. Lindner writes in the latest issue of the American Sociological Association’s Context magazine about his findings on how the media reported, and continue to report, the Iraq war. He says, the dearth of embedded reporting effectively gave an Iraq “media victory” for the Bush Administration, “The embedded program proved to be a […]
Joe Galloway is not a Pentagon poodle
Joe Galloway, an American war reporter, hits back at attempts to involve him in the Pentagon media poodles campaign we mentioned recently. According to Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher, Joe’s not having any of it, “There’s little doubt that this program violated the laws against covert propaganda operations mounted against the American public by […]
Roddy Scott fundraiser
The Nidderdale Herald reports on the Nidderdale Book Festival, held on a farm in Summerbridge to help raise funds for the Roddy Scott Foundation. Kate Adie was among those present and she talked about her passion for reporting on war in a correct manner, “We all think that reporting a war correctly is important and […]
U.N. to Somalia?
It’s about time: The Security Council unanimously approved a resolution on Thursday calling for a U.N. political presence in conflict-wracked Somalia for the first time in years and setting conditions for the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers. The resolution urged the United Nations to move its Somalia political office from Kenya to the Horn of Africa […]
Reuters seek truth behind death of Fadel Shana
A month after Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana was killed by an Israeli tank shell in the Gaza strip, the news organisation still has no explanation from Israeli authorities as to why he was targetted, “A month has passed since Fadel Shana was killed by Israeli forces while responsibly going about his professional duties,” said Reuters […]
CNN MultiChoice African Journalist 2008 finalists announced
The finalists in the CNN MultiChoice African Journalist 2008 Competition were announced today. The competition is in its 13th year. The winners will be anounced in Accra, Ghana on 19 July, Announcing the finalists, Azubuike Ishiekwene said: “”I have followed the CNN MultiChoice Awards for the past four years and watched them grow steadily to […]
Bangladesh boat project bags Sony
The BBC Bangladesh Boat Project has won the Sony Multiplatorm Radio journalism award. Ben Sutherland, one of the reporters on the project, writes about the experience for the BBC Editor’s Blog. He says it wasn’t just the amazing stories they helped tell, it was how they told them, Not only was the method of getting […]
Sun brush with Burmese police
Nick Parker and Peter Jordan from The Sun newspaper felt the long arm of the Burmese law this week. The reporter and snapper duo were stopped as they headed south into the Irrawaddy Delta, We were ushered into an office where an immigration officer was waiting with pen poised. He seized our passports and began […]
Becoming a news photographer
Reuters David Viggars discusses why he decided to become a news photographer on the Reuters blog, [The images of the Chinese earthquake] remind me what has always been so compelling about my job – the ease and speed with which still pictures can impart so much readily understood information to so many people. link
31 very interesting things: 2. Warchild
[video:youtube:ekigsvTDJXo] Emmanuel Jal was eight when he was handed an AK-47 and told to fight for the southern Sudanese rebels of the SPLA. He escaped Sudan in a bag, smuggled out by Emma McCune, a British aid worker, on a UN flight. Now he is one of Africa’s hottest rappers. His new album is due […]
The new AP – no cost – high impact
following the jaipur blasts on twitter, originally uploaded by robinhamman. Robin Hamman follows how the microblogging tool Twitter was again so effectively used during the bomb blasts in Jaipur two days ago. Robin used Tweetscan, a tool that searches public Twitter messages for keywords, to see if anyone was twittering from the scene. It’s not […]
31 very interesting things: 1. Deutscher Girls
[video:youtube:9fmg3JKHAcM] So Graham Holliday in his noodlepie guise has invited me to join him in his 31 very interesting things challenge. This is of course right up my street, as the sort of very tedious person who might ask you over the starter to name your top 3 records of all time. It’ll be a […]
Susan Schulman on Congo
[video:youtube:rnW3ZnU3mSo] The Press Gazette picks up on the Frontline Club Congo season, which runs until May 16, and the work of Susan Schulman, whose photographs were used to help produce the Congo season video above. In the article, Schulman also talks about her work for Guardian Weekly and Channel 4 and the difficulty in getting […]
The diary of John D. McHugh
More from our man in Afghanistan. Actually, the Guardian’s paying for his tea and biscuits and not us. However, he is the winner of the inaugural Frontline Club Award for Journalism and that’s good enough for this blog. John D. McHugh’s latest update for his Guardian diary is now live and it appears IT is […]
Explaining Omdurman
[video:youtube:AeldqfwUh4c] Meskel Square takes a stab at deciphering last week’s attack on Omdurman, Sudan’s largest city just across the Nile from the capital Khartoum. So, after hours of exhaustive interviews, in depth research and the refining of my own expert analysis, I have at last come up with the motive behind JEM’s shock attack on […]
Jonathan Steele reads Defeat
Jonathan Steele, senior foreign correspondent for The Guardian, reads from his latest book Defeat: Why America and Britain Lost Iraq for NPR, In the new book Defeat: Why America and Britain Lost Iraq, Jonathan Steele dissects the war and explains how it could have been fought — and planned — more successfully. This reading of […]
No cameras, no foreigners
On the back of yet another foreign journalist deportation from Burma – the BBCs Paul Danahar was deported on 11 May following Andrew Harding’s short trip to Rangoon last week – IPS reports that cameras and foreigners are banned from the country that was devastated by Cyclone Nargis on May 2, This week, a senior […]
Emily Holland heads to Liberia
Emily Holland heads to Liberia for the International Rescue Committee and she’ll be blogging her journey, I’ll be exploring and writing about the IRC’s efforts to assist Liberians who were displaced during the fifteen-year long civil war. I’ll visit a clinic, a school, a radio station, and an agricultural project, among other IRC initiatives. Whether […]
