Frontline Club bloggers
Pure Imagination: Saudi Arabia in Peril?
By Elliot Goat The greatest peril comes not from a lack of analysis but from a lack of imagination.” – Sir William Patey, British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (2007-10)
Media censorship, broadcast funding, and The World According to Russia Today
By Josie Le Blond Who shot down MH17? For international TV channel Russia Today (RT), whose tag line is “Question More,” the truth has many faces. But is the Kremlin-backed channel’s post-modernist approach to news threatening to undermine empirical journalism? That was the subject of a panel Q&A following the UK premiere of Misja Pekel‘s […]
Afghanistan: Lessons Of War
By Isabel Gonzalez-Prendergast On 25 February, a panel of experts convened at the Frontline Club for a discussion on the war in Afghanistan and its ongoing legacy. Chaired by BBC Afghanistan correspondent, David Loyn, the debate spanned the period from 11 September 2001 to the present day.
Boko Haram: Africa’s Islamic State?
By Agnes Chambre The Frontline Club was at full capacity on Wednesday 4 February, as a panel of experts discussed the implications of Boko Haram’s presence in West Africa in the lead up to the Nigerian presidential elections on 14 February. The panel included: Bala Mohammed Liman, a doctoral candidate at SOAS specialising in the intersection […]
The Great European Disaster Movie
By Francis Churchill “We are in an aeroplane, and we don’t know who is driving the aeroplane. We are in a storm and we don’t know what is happening to us…”. This was the idea that Annalisa Piras wanted to entertain in her new film, The Great European Disaster Movie, which previewed at the Frontline Club […]
Quelque part en France: Introducing John G Morris the photographer
By Isabel Gonzalez-Prendergast On Tuesday 11 November, John G Morris, former picture editor for Life magazine, joined guests at the Frontline Club to share his photographs and experiences in Normandy towards the end World War II. Robert Pledge, co-founder of Contact Press Images and editor of Morris‘s book Quelque Part En France, joined his good […]
Can illustration offer another layer to war reportage?
By Sally Ashley-Cound At the Frontline Club on Wednesday 16 April illustrator George Butler and features editor for The Guardian and editor of the G2 supplement Malik Meer discussed whether there is room for supposedly more subjective and abstract illustration in hard-news when photography dominates.
Art and Politics: The aesthetics of protest and the fight for human rights
by Sally Ashley-Cound On Wednesday 26 March 2014, Lacuna magazine hosted a night of discussion and performance at the Frontline Club chaired by Maureen Freely, English Pen president.
“We try our best”- Ten Years On The Front Line
By Daniel Tookey A distinguished panel of journalists gathered at the Frontline Club on Wednesday 27 November to celebrate its tenth anniversary and to reflect, with great humility, on the past ten years of reporting from front lines around the world.
Twenty Years of War Reporting: “A good moment for us is often the worst for them”
By Caroline Schmitt In October the Frontline Club held a tenth anniversary exhibition at the Prix Bayeux Awards and on 13 November they welcomed Prix Bayeux to London for an event to celebrate their twentieth anniversary. The event brought together past winners who each presented their distinguished pieces of reporting and looked back on 20 years of reporting conflict. The evening was […]
“Envy is the Central Fact of American Life“ – Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia + Director Q&A
By Greta Hoffman On 11 November, the Frontline Club hosted the screening of Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia. Finished less than a year after Vidal’s death, the film gave an intimate and in-depth insight into Vidal’s life and career as a writer and political commentator. The screening was followed by a lively Q&A […]
Russia Ten Years after Khodorkovsky
By Daniel Alan Kennedy On 23 October the Frontline Club held a panel discussion to mark the ten years since the arrest and imprisonment of Russia’s then-wealthiest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The discussion was chaired by Edward Lucas, international editor of The Economist and featured: Tonia Samsonova, a journalist from the radio station Ekho Moskvy; Ben Judah, author […]
The Central Park Five + Directors Q&A: “How is it that we were so ready to believe they were guilty?”
by Ratha Lehall On Friday 18 October, the Frontline Club hosted a screening of the documentary The Central Park Five, in partnership with PBS America. The film focuses on five black and hispanic teenagers from Harlem, New York, who were imprisoned after falsely confessing to brutally raping and beating a young woman in Central Park in 1989. […]
Pretty Village: Life After War
By Peter Ford On Friday 20 September, the Frontline Club hosted a preview screening of David Evans’ Pretty Village, which was followed by an emotional debate and panel discussion featuring protagonist and producer Kemal Pervanic and journalist at ITV News, Penny Marshall. The debate was moderated by Ed Vulliamy, writer for The Guardian and The Observer.
Screening: Google and the World Brain
By Pete Ford Google and the World Brain, co-produced by the BBC and initially broadcasted as part of their Storyville strand in 2013. Played to a typically crowded Frontline Club on Tuesday 27th August, as part of this summer’s season exploring how technological changes shape the way we view and document the world. Setting out at Christmas […]
Where next for a post-Morsi Egypt?
By Daniel Alan Kennedy The 2011 revolution in Egypt raised hopes that democratic institutions would replace Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorship. The recent removal of President Morsi by the Egyptian military and the violence on the streets that followed has instead left Egypt facing an uncertain future. Jeremy Bowen, BBC Middle East Editor and renowned Egyptian journalist Yosri Fouda met […]
SMASH & GRAB: The Story of the Pink Panthers Q&A
By George Symonds “Only superhumans could be as good as them.” On Monday 8 July, the Frontline Club screened SMASH & GRAB: The Story of the Pink Panthers. With unprecedented access to the most successful diamond thieves in history, director Havana Marking took viewers on a candid journey into the minds of the Pink Panthers. […]
‘You don’t have to be hit by a bullet to be a victim of war’: Reflections of Gino Strada, war surgeon
By Helena Williams “You don’t have to be hit by a bullet or step on landmine to be a victim of war.”
Digital Media and Reporting Conflict: The book and the end of Reporting War
This blog has been dormant for a while and the publication of Digital Media and Reporting Conflict: Blogging and the BBC’s Coverage of War and Terrorism is the right time to formally close it. It’s been an amazing journey over the last five years or so and I’ve really enjoyed working on the project, documenting it on the Frontline Club website, […]
Fortress – Glimpses into Transnistria
By George Symonds On Wednesday 19 June, the Frontline Club audience burst into spontaneous applause to the precision choreography of a Transnistrian military parade. The footage was part of the documentary film Fortress, shown at the preview screening of Open City Docs Fest, supported by the Czech Centre London as part of One World Echoes in London. […]
What Took You So Long? – Talking Strategy with the Guerrilla Filmmakers
By George Symonds From Somalia to Iraq, Haiti to Columbia and many places in between, filmmakers What Took You So Long? do not only make films – they explore, connect and collaborate with communities worldwide. Ahead of their distinguished Guerrilla Filmmaking Workshop at the Frontline Club, we caught up with the team for an exclusive Q&A: […]
A Daughter’s Memoir of Burma
By Laura Hughes On 11 June, the Frontline Club hosted Wendy Law-Yone, in conversation with the BBC’s diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall. She was discussed her new memoir based on the manuscripts of her father, Ed Law-Yone, the founder of Burma’s The Nation newspaper. It was not until 20 years after his death that Law-Yone found the […]
Under the Wire: In conversation with Paul Conroy
By Anna Reitman Photojournalist and filmmaker Paul Conroy joined Channel 4 News’ international editor Lindsey Hilsum at the Frontline Club on 6 June, to give a personal account of his experiences in Syria, detailed in his new book Under the wire: Marie Colvin’s Final Assignment. Encouraged by his friends, Conroy wrote the book as he recovered […]
Shorts at the Frontline Club: a cinematic journey around the world
By George Symonds On Friday 17th May, a series of short films curated by the Frontline Club took the audience on a cinematic journey from Sarajevo to Prague, to Kabul, Aleppo and Moscow. We started in Sarajevo with The Fuse: or How I Burned Simon Bolivar, directed by Igor Drljača. “Dear God, I don’t know if you exist. My […]
Iran: Crackdowns and power struggles
By Laura Hughes On 24th April 2013, the Frontline Club hosted a discussion on Iran’s political system in the lead up to the country’s elections in June. Azadeh Moaveni, former Middle East correspondent for Time magazine, hosted the panel of Iranian experts.
A country’s struggle between the glamourous world of Eurovision and the unrealistic demand for democracy
By Caroline Schmitt The screening of “Amazing Azerbaijan!” on Thursday, 11th April was followed by a Q&A with the film’s director Liz Mermin. The film contrasts the two-faced Azerbaijan: on one hand there was the glamour before and during Eurovision, carefully constructed by the government; the other side is that investigative journalists like Khadija Ismayilova regularly […]
Bam shuts the town down
By David Arnold, reporting from Sana’a Since arriving in Sana’a three weeks ago, I’ve been shocked by the contrast Yemen’s cosmopolitan capital provided to scaremongering international representations. For those outside it, Yemen remains synonymous with terrorism, yet in my experience people here are less concerned with Al-Qaeda bomb scares than with where next months salary […]
From Cast Lead to Pillar of Defense: How the IDF has learnt to communicate war in Gaza online
In 2009, I wrote a blog post arguing that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had “fallen off the social media bandwagon”. Their digital media campaign in support of Operation Cast Lead in Gaza was hastily conceived, unimaginative and anti-‘social’. New tools were used to disseminate traditional military messages with little regard for a new online […]
Afghan Army Girls: Q&A with first-time director Lalage Snow
The screening of Afghan Army girls ended with a roaring sound of applause at the Frontline Club yesterday evening.
Is Invisible Children’s KONY 2012 campaign baloney?
With over one hundred million ‘views’ the Kony 2012 video has started a far-reaching debate on the aims and value of a production seen by many as an over-simplification of complex situation.