Obituary column

June 18, 2008

Four charged for Politkovskaya murder

“Three suspects have been charged with the murder of [Anna Politkovskaya]: Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov,” the Investigations Committee said in a statement announcing the end of the high-profile murder inquiry. A fourth man, Pavel Ryaguzov, an officer in Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the former KGB, has been charged with abuse of power […]


June 17, 2008

Cameras not guns

David Schlesinger, Reuters editor-in-chief, writes on the Reuters Editors blog about journalism safety and the case of Fadel Shana – the Reuters cameraman who was killed by an Israeli tank shell, A military that has sophisticated intelligence and identification methods can learn to tell a camera from a gun. A military that works hard to […]


June 17, 2008

Reuters killing justified

The Press Gazette reports that a US government inquiry into the killing of Reuters soundman Waleed Khaled and the wounding of cameraman Haider Kadhem in Iraq 2005 was justified, The Office of the Inspector General of the US Department of Defense report into the killing of soundman Waleed Khaled and the wounding of cameraman Haider […]


June 17, 2008

Iraqi TV reporter killed

A Iraqi TV reporter in the northern city of Mosul has been shot and killed according to reports just coming in from AP, An Iraqi policeman says gunmen emerged from a car Tuesday and opened fire on Muhieddin Abdul-Hamid near his apartment in eastern Mosul. An official with Iraqiya state TV says the 50-year-old journalist […]


June 17, 2008

Broadcasting House memorial

The BBC New Broadcasting House Memorial web page accompanies the unveiling of the Breathing sculpture built to commemorate the deaths of journalists killed in the line of work. Three of the names mentioned on the memorial page will be familiar to Frontline Club members. Former Frontline TV agency journalists Nick Della Casa, his wife, Rosanna, […]


June 16, 2008

In memoriam

BBC Radio 4 newsreader Harriet Cass reads a poem in honour of murdered journalists. Click the image above to listen. For more on the memorial to murdered journalists see this post. via sambrook UPDATE: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon gives a speech at the opening ceremony.


June 16, 2008

Michael Norton dies age 66

Michael Norton worked as the AP Haiti correspondent. He spent the best part of 20 years covering the Caribbean republic. He died in Caguas, Puerto Rico on Sunday after a long battle with cancer, Unlike many who covered Haiti from hotels, Norton lived like many Haitians – struggling through power cuts, water shortages, street violence […]


June 16, 2008

All have their story here

From 10pm tonight a shaft of light will light up the sky above BBC Broadcasting House in London. Every evening at the same time, the ten metre high glass and steel structure will be turned on as a memorial to journalists who have died doing their job. Relatives of some reporters who were killed will […]


June 12, 2008

Silent mourning for Abdul Samad Rohani

TV and radio stations across Britain mourned the loss of Abdul Samad Rohani with a two minute silence. Meanwhile a memorial to the young reporter, who worked for the BBC in Helmand province, has been organised, The memorial had been organised by Afghan journalist unions for their murdered colleague. Some speakers read poems, a traditional […]


June 9, 2008

BBC on journalist deaths

Jon Williams, BBC World News Editor, blogs about the deaths of Abdul Samad Rohani and Nasteh Dahir, the two BBC journalists killed this past weekend, Last year, the International News Safety Institute reported that two journalists had been killed every week over the past ten years – a thousand media workers lost their lives between […]


June 9, 2008

Murdered BBC journalist buried

Abdul Samad Rohani, the 25 year old BBC journalist murdered in Helmand province on Sunday, was buried in his home cemetery in the district of Marja today, “Unknown armed men had abducted Rohani and his body was found yesterday. He had four bullets shot at his chest. We are investigating the case.” A relative who […]


June 8, 2008

Abdul Samad Rohani killed in Lashkar Gah

BBC journalist Abdul Samad Rohani was found shot dead in Lashkar Gah in southern Helmand province, Afghanistan today, A BBC statement said Rohani’s “bravery – and that of his colleagues – have allowed us to tell a key story for audiences in the UK, in Afghanistan and around the world”. It added: “His death is […]


June 8, 2008

Nasteh Dahir killed in Somalia

Nasteh Dahir was killed in Somalia yesterday. The local journalist worked for the BBC and the AP. The National Union of Somali Journalists called it a “targeted assasination”. Our man Rob Crilly has more, Those of us who flit in and out of Somalia owe a heck of a lot to the courage of the […]


May 30, 2008

The case of Trent Keegan

Freelance photographer Trent Keegan was murdered on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya. His body was found in a ditch on Wednesday, 28 May. I’m not going to say much more about this at the moment, but I’d like to point you Nairobi-based, Frontline blogger, Rob Crilly who knew Trent and is following the case. As […]


May 26, 2008

Cornell Capa dies aged 90

Capa is remembered for coining the phrase “the concerned photographer,” describing those who use their photography to contribute to humanity’s well-being. The idea has been an inspiration for countless photojournalists over the last five decades. link Capa founded the International Center of Photography in 1974 as a place to store his brother Robert’s archives and […]


May 15, 2008

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 […]


May 14, 2008

Kate Webb’s ashes spread

The ashes of war correspondent Kate Webb were spread in Wellington Harbour in her native New Zealand yesterday some 37 years after her “first death”, The ashes of New Zealand-born war correspondent Kate Webb were scattered on Wellington Harbour Tuesday, 37 years after she first read her death notices in the world’s newspapers. Webb, who […]


May 14, 2008

Michael Bhatia remembered

Michael Bhatia was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan on May 7. He was an American academic who was sent to Afghanistan to help the US military understand the country’s customs in what are known (rather inhumanely) as “human terrain teams”. He took pictures and wrote about his time there. The Globalist is republishing […]


May 11, 2008

Ian E. Brodie dies aged 75

Ian Ellery Brodie, a British foreign correspondent who covered Vietnam and worked out of Moscow before moving to the United States in 1975, has died of a stroke aged 72. The Daily Telegraph, a paper Brodie worked for, has an obituary and the Washington Post remembers an incident involving Brodie and Dan Quayle, In October […]


May 5, 2008

Sarwa Abdul-Wahab gunned down

Sarwa Abdul-Wahab was gunned down in the Bakir district of Mosul on Sunday. The 35 year old freelanced for the Kurdistan Reporters News Agency and worked as a lawyer defending journalists’ rights. The IHT has more, “She was a member of our association which is based in Baghdad but has a branch in Mosul,” said […]


April 17, 2008

Fadel Shana buried in Gaza

Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana was buried today in Gaza City. The 23 year old was one of three killed yesterday near the Bureij refugee camp when an Israeli tank fired upon the car they were in, Reuters released the final video taken by Mr Shana in the seconds before his death. The footage shows a […]


April 14, 2008

Burt Glinn dies age 82

Cold war photographer Burt Glinn has died age 82. He’s most well known for his work in Cuba during Castro’s revolution. The Moscow Times remembers this highlight in his career on New Year’s Eve in 1958 when the young photographer arrived in Havana looking for the revolution, When he was in New York and got […]


April 6, 2008

Jon Swain remembers Dith Pran

Sunday Times war reporter Jon Swain remembers Dith Pran, the man who saved his life in Cambodia in 1975 and who died last week, I first met Pran in 1972. Although his loyalty was always to Schanberg, he was ready to give help and advice to me and all the other journalists. Never more so […]


April 5, 2008

Sir Geoffrey Cox dies age 97

Sir Geoffrey Cox, one of the greatest foreign correspondents of the 1930s, died in Britain this week. The New Zealander started out as a correspondent at 26 years old. He covered the Spanish civil war and the Nazi invasion of Austria for the News Chronicle and the Daily Express. He went on to found the […]


March 31, 2008

Photojournalist Dith Pran dies

The photojournalist Dith Pran died last night in a New Jersey hospital. Pran first became known to the wider world in 1980 when the New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg published his book The Death and Life of Dith Pran. The book was later made into the film The Killing Fields. Pran worked as a […]


March 21, 2008

Ilyas Shurpayev killed

According to reports from Novosti Ilyas Shurpayev, a Russian television journalist, has been found dead in his apartment in the northeast of Moscow. The 32 year old was known for reporting from Russia’s North Caucasus including the republic of Daghestan, Georgia’s breakaway republic of Abkhazia and Chechnya, “According to a preliminary forensic medical examination, Ilyas […]


March 21, 2008

Welsh fears for Philip Jones Griffiths collection

According to The Western Mail Frontline Club Honorary member Philip Jones Griffiths spent the last seven years of his life trying to find a permanent home for his photos. However it appears he failed to reach an agreement with a number of Welsh institutions including Bangor, Aberystwyth and Newport Universities and the National Library of […]


March 19, 2008

Philip Jones Griffiths (1936 – 2008)

[video:brightcove:1394647866] After a lengthy battle with cancer, Philip Jones Griffiths sadly passed away on Wednesday 19 March. Philip was a Frontline Club member and was widely considered to be one of the greatest war photographers of the twentieth century. He is best remembered for his work on the war in Vietnam – his seminal book […]


March 13, 2008

Iraqi journalist shot dead

Xinhua reports that an Iraqi journalist was shot dead in central Baghdad today. “Qasim Abdul Hussein al-Eqabi, a journalist working for the local al-Muwatin newspaper was killed when unknown gunmen in two cars showered him with bullets near the National Theater in Karrada neighborhood,” said Jabbar Tarrad, the new chief of the Iraqi Journalists’ Union. […]


February 28, 2008

W. C. Heinz dies at 93

The former war correspondent, sports columnist, magazine writer and novelist W.C. Heinz died on Wednesday at the age of 93. The New York Times obituary retells the story behind the story of his 1949 feature article “The Morning They Shot the Spies” In it he describes a firing squad execution of three Germans who had […]