From the Frontline: November 2007 Archives
Marcus Bleasdale back from Congo
Frontline Club member Marcus Bleasdale has spent the best part of the last decade in and out of Congo taking photographs of the ongoing conflict. As well as contributing to newspapers and magazines, Marcus documented his work in the book One hundred years of darkness. The book was recognised...more
Heathcliff O'Malley is blogging
And what's that new name at the top of the page? Frontline club member Heathcliff O'Malley joins the From the frontline blog ranks today. He's a photographer, often found within the pages of the Daily Telegraph. He's on the road in Russia, following President Vladimir Putin across the steppes. Go...more
AFP launch Asia Media Award
Agence France-Presse announced the launch of the Kate Webb Award last night in Hong Kong. Kate worked for AFP in Asia for sixteen years. The New Zealand born foreign correspondent covered many wars, coups and conflicts throughout the region. Notoriously, she was captured by North Vietnamese soldiers in Cambodia...more
Conquer or die
[video:youtube:VpBeRvhRTw4&eurl] Afghan Knights - "Conquer or die" - Oh dear, oh weary, weary dear... This straight to video crapfest depicts the war in Afghanistan. For value added super realism it is filmed in Kamloops, British Columbia in a country called Canada. "Exotic" Kamloops, as Afghanistanica calls it, is approximately 6524.398...more
Reuters get their mojo converged
[video:youtube:L_OJGeamwbs] There's a lot of talk (too much???) about "media convergence" and here's some more in a video filmed during a roundtable at Reuters to discuss their mobile journalism project. The news agency is experimenting with small handheld Nokia recording equipment. While it's not the norm now, it's a fascinating...more
Foreign correspondent's family killed in Iraq
Deutsche Welle reports that eleven members of the family of an Iraqi foreign correspondent based in Jordan having been killed in Baghdad, Armed men have massacred eleven family members of an Iraqi foreign correspondent, including seven children. The correspondent himself, Dia al-Kawas called the AFP news agency from Amman in...more
War weary
Jane Hansen, former TV journalist, foreign correspondent and war reporter, talks about her new book Three Seasons and how it's not the excitement of "the job" that has made her "war weary" these past few years, Jane talks about her decision to delay starting a family with Andrew because...more
A correspondent cooks
Andrew Whitehead, the BBC's former man in Delhi, has a new book out called A Mission in Kashmir. More interestingly, he's cooking Spanish food for Indian journalists and their families in New Delhi. The Business Standard's Rrishi Raote has more, He was in Delhi for the launch of his book,...more
Lola Almudevar killed in car crash
BBC video journalist Lola Almudevar and four others have died and four others have died in a pileup in Bolivia, which took place en route to the city of Sucre in the early hours of Sunday. Eduardo GarcÃa Gil, a Spanish reporter with Reuters, was also said to have been...more
Caroline Wyatt defence correspondent
Club member and ex Paris BBC correspondent, Caroline Wyatt has been named as BBC defence correspondent across TV, radio and online. From journalism.co.uk Wyatt returns to the BBC where she was previously Paris correspondent, a position which she held from June 2003 to August 2007. She has also worked...more
Grilling Johnston
Alan Johnston is answering questions on the Guardian's Organ Grinder blog NOW.... Here's a snippet, Do you think you'll go back to Gaza sometime? AJ: I lived in Gaza for three years, it became my home and a huge part of my life. I'd love to go back and see...more
"Sucking at the hind tit of power"
[video:youtube:jpuzOhvaE3c] The Independent newspaper's Robert Fisk dons the hobnail boots and kicks the crap out of the US media. Well, not quite but, official sources say, he's not very happy with the state of mediaplay stateside. The video is taken from the recent Frontline Club event in New York. The...more
China crisis
The Foreign Correspondents Club of China sends a letter to members today detailing the treatment dished out to three Swiss journalists and their Chinese assistants in two separate incidents while reporting from the Chinese sticks earlier this week. Swiss TV reporter Barbara Luethi relates the story of her interrogation at...more
David Axe heads to Mogadishu
David Axe is a journalist and cartoonist and he blogs at the oddly titled War is boring. He's just arrived in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, to report on the "insurgency" and the work of the African Union. I fired off a few questions to David about his assignment...more
War, truth and the media today
A short film made for the Media workers against the war conference at the London School of Economics last weekend, Amid all the current agonising about media integrity - and at a time when BBC management is preparing to cut news resources even further - can there be any...more
Shooting War
Shooting War is a graphic novel set in the Iraq of 2011. Journalist Anthony Lappe drew on his experience working for the New York Times in Iraq to create the book with artist Dan Goldman....more
Dumitru Tinu case re-opens
From the International Herald Tribune, Prosecutors on Monday exhumed the body of an influential Romanian journalist after years of speculation over his death in an auto accident in 2003. An inquest found that Dumitru Tinu, the managing director and majority owner of influential daily Adevarul, died after losing control of...more
"Working in Somalia is a death sentence"
Following the shutdown of three popular radio stations in Somalia in recent weeks, freelance photojournalist Salah Mohammed Adde was arrested on 15 November by plain clothes officers at the Banadir Football Stadium in north Mogadishu. According to IFEX, Salah was taking pictures of the demonstrators, who were expressing support for...more
"The most dangerous war in the history of journalism"
The Indepedent reports on the grim landmark reached this week. More than 200 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the beginning of the war in March, 2003. The Independent compares this to previous wars, Two were killed in the First World War, 68 in the Second, 77 in Vietnam...more
Story behind the snap
Photographer Luis Sinco tells the story of the image he took of Marine Lance Corporal James Blake Miller as the soldier's regiment entered Falluja on 8 November 2004, On the second day of the battle, I called my wife by satellite phone to tell her that I was OK....more
Lester Ziffren 1906-2007
Lester Ziffren, who covered the Spanish Civil War for United Press, has died at the very fine age of 101. Before his death he was believed to be the oldest surviving employee of United Press. The Quad City Times has this interesting snippet from his reporting of the civil...more
From the 2007 Kurt Schork Awards
[video:youtube:Yl7VqDix1yI] A brief snippet of the 2007 Kurt Schork Awards 'do at the Frontline Club on the 14th November. Full video should be coming soon here... UPDATE: And here it is....more
On the New York Frontline
Some feedback coming through from the recent Is it over for Frontline Reporting? Frontline Club event in Brooklyn, New York including this from Hell's Kitchener about what Robert Fisk had to say during the panel, “The New York Times actually lives in a fortress with Iraqi guards with ‘New York...more
Branding battlefield journalism
In the wake of recent reporting from Afghanistan the popular Defence of the Realm blog suggests the Ministry of Defence brand battlefield journalism, The MoD could get press organs to sponsor different battles, encouraged by opportunities to place their logos on the armoured vehicles and advertising slogans on personal armour....more
Back to basics
Raghida Dergham, columnist and senior diplomatic correspondent for the pan-Arab daily Al Hayat, spoke recently about her experience as a female, arab journalist. In among the big name reminiscences and Davos schmoozing come some insights into the current state of journalism, This a “very confused time in journalismâ€... we need...more
2007 Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism
Just in case it had slipped your notice, but tonight the Frontline Club will be hosting the 2007 Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism, This year’s winners are the late Sahar Al-Haideri, an Iraqi freelance journalist and IWPR trainee who paid the ultimate price for her commitment to journalism –...more
Check the register
Sherif Samaha, the manager of the "popular postwar hang-out for journalists" - the Mayflower Hotel in Beirut - is suing The Independent newspaper over an article by Robert Fisk, After Samaha's initial complaint, the reference to the hotel was removed from the story published on its website, Secret armies pose...more
Comicbook journalism
War reporter cartoonist Joe Sacco is interviewed in the Star Tribune. Socca has cartooned from Palestine to Bosnia and, most recently, Iraq, I certainly wondered how seriously I would be taken when I started "Palestine." First of all, comics at the time were still dismissed by the mainstream. And...more
Rageh goes underworld
Former BBC foreign correspondent Rageh 'Scud stud' Omar starts a new series called Crime Invasion: Britain's New Underworld with Virgin 1 TV channel, "The show's got a lot of edge to it. We hope viewers will look at it and say 'Oh my God, did you see that on...more
In the footsteps of William Howard Russell
Richard Beeston at The Times heads to Crimea in the footsteps of William Howard Russell, a war reporter of the 150 year old school, It is almost impossible for today’s reporter to witness and record more than a snap-shot of the whole picture... Not so for Billy Russell, as he...more
Against all odds
UNHCR steps into the gaming world with an online game that allows you - the gamer - to experience what it's like to be a refugee. To beat the game, called Against all odds, you'll need to escape a hostile town, guide your character over dodgy borders and stay alive...more
Aid dependency
Glenda Cooper writes a column in The Guardian about the changing face of foreign news reporting, telling titled From their own correspondent. She argues, convincingly, that the general public are, and always were, more likely to be the first on the scene at any major news event before the press...more
Crowdsourcing at the Club
The Guardian's Roy Greenslade will be posing questions to Robert Thomson, Editor of The Times, at the Frontline Club tonight and, in a very Web2.0, crowd sourcing, wisdom of the oiks manner, he's looking for your questions. Some questions already coming in, Do you think think that Rupert Murdoch's...more
Conpiracy surrounds Saipov
Journalist Alisher Saipov working in southern Kyrgyzstan was gunned down on the evening of October 24th. The Institute for War and Peace reporting has more details and discussion, Saipov, 26, was killed by three gunshots on the evening of October 24 in the centre of Osh, the major city...more
GLAMOUR women
CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan battles here phobia for crappy women's mags to step up and accept a GLAMOUR 'woman of the year' award for 2007. Logan apparently had a change of heart when she discovered the magazine was also helping to fund charities like Empowering Hands,...more
AP does war and peace
John Daniszewski, International Editor at the Associated Press and veteran foreign correspondent with 20 years of experience in the bank together with a Romanian revolution gunshot wound in the arm contributes to a new book. The title requires a deep breath... The Associated Press-Breaking News: How the Associated Press...more
"Growing up fast"
Ben Anderson hits Helmand for the Daily Mail,As a BBC foreign correspondent, I've visited most of the world's war zones - Iraq, Gaza, Congo and many more - but nothing prepared me for what I found when I flew into Kandahar airport to join up with a unit of the...more
Johnston at the Club
Here's a clip of Alan Johnston talking at the Frontline Club last week. You can watch the full talk here....more
Excerpts from the sandbox
This week Slate publish excerpts from a series of stories from the frontlines of Iraq and Afghanistan. The snippets are taken from the Sandbox blog which is a collaboration between Doonesbury creator G.B. Trudeau and editor David Stanford. The blog is a mix of opium, bullets and dangerous encounters...more
Best of the war blogs
The BBC's iPM blog picks up the war blogging theme following on from poppy wearing Rememberance Sunday with a "selection of the best "milblogs""...more
From the Frontline:
Stories and analysis from journalists around the world and insight into the world of foreign correspondents, war reporters, life on...