News
The Kremlin and its critics – 24/11/06
For those of you who read our blog for updates on the ranch and a whiff of wilderness escape, my apologies. The recent shooting of Anna Politkovskaya, a fierce Putin critic in Russia, has left me musing on the future of that great country and a small incident shortly before I left Russia last year. […]
Journalists Under Fire:The Psychological Hazards of Covering War
Like most journalists I blow hot and cold on this question on the straightforward grounds that those who can’t stand the heat should not venture into the kitchen. I have taken part in more than one public discussion on how repeated and prolonged exposure to war affects the mental and emotional state of journalists and […]
Picture imperfect
With the notable exception of t-mobile, mobile phone operators and broadcasters are clamouring to get into the mobile TV market but is the technology ready and do consumers really want it? At the moment most mobile TV is streamed over 2G, 2.5G or 3G networks to mobile handsets. “Unicast streaming” is the most common where […]
Al-Jazeera English (2)
Let’s start with the good things. The graphics (bought in from the same company that supplied CNN International’s new makeover) looked sprightly. In the first week, two of the flagship programmes did well. David Frost managed to get an uncharacteristic slip out of Tony Blair on Iraq (he seemed to admit that the Iraq adventure […]
Death of a critic
It was an early morning phone call that let me know of the attack. Issa, a friend in Chechnya, his usually steady voice betraying just a tremor of fear, said unknown gunmen had opened fire on the car he had sent to collect me. Of the two men inside, one was badly wounded. He said […]
Chainsaws and Capuccinos – 17/10/06
I stood there facing our latest purchase. A logging truck load of timber. That’s maybe 20 chords of wood. A huge amount. Even with our three greedy woodstoves it might last us two or three years. The logs lay silently, almost solemnly, on a forgotten edge of our property, hard on the mountainside. Now all […]
Inside Out – October 06
Every so often at the Frontline Club there’s a debate that underscores why Vaughan Smith decided to establish it in the first place. That debate took place at the tribute to Martin Adler, the Swedish freelance, who was shot dead in Mogadishu in June. The debate centred on whether broadcasters or news agencies had a […]
The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq
Patrick Cockburn’s latest book, The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq opens with the following words: “It has been the strangest war. It had hardly begun in 2003 when President George W. Bush announced on May 1 that it was over: the American mission had been accomplished. Months passed before Washington and London realised that […]
On Release
You just know when the Head of News for the company your husband freelances for tracks you down at a Damascus hotel late in the evening that he’s not ringing to offer you a job. You know as the unfamiliar TV executive hastily introduces himself that he’s calling you with extremely bad news. Probably to […]
Convergent Lines
Revolutions aren’t unusual subjects for the Frontline Club. The walls are thick with them. Though while we nurse our drinks under the portrait of Pinochet, we might not notice the revolution happening around us, borne on the club’s wifi signal. The internet revolution is back on and this time it’s for real: based on genuine […]
Feet in both camps (1)
In the July war in Lebanon we could never see the danger coming from the Israeli warplanes or know when they might suddenly strike. It made for apprehension, moments of terror and lots of black humour. There was the constant roar overhead day and night. Then there was the constant buzz of the drones. Like […]
Inside Out – September 06
When a senior editor at one of Britain’s leading newspapers was called and invited as a guest to one of our events he said that he’d never set foot in the Frontline Club and called it a “wanky concept”. It is tempting to name the editor involved but I will follow the common UK practice […]
Feet in both camps (2)
When you arrive in Israel as a journalist, you have to make your way to the Government Press Office in Jerusalem to get a press card. It’s a pretty routine bit of bureaucracy – a few forms in exchange for official accreditation. Among the forms you sign is one promising that you’ll obey the rules […]
Teutons and Moosery – 22/07/06
It was an unexpected start to our first season. Last month, returning to the ranch one sunny afternoon, Kristin came upon three over-sized red-headed German tourists spread out comfortably in our garden around one of our refurbished picnic tables. They had unloaded their lunch onto its pristine olive-green surface – I know it was pristine […]
Inside Out – July 06
What Ron McCullagh didn’t tell you in his moving tribute to Martin Adler is that the British press didn’t even name him when they reported his death. He was a “Swedish cameraman” who was killed on assignment in Mogadishu. That’s all they wrote. British broadcasters were far more responsible and were led by Jon Snow […]
Look who’s listening
Among the momentous developments that marked the close of the 20th Century one that received less attention than most was the revelation of a new international spy ring unparalleled in its scope. This operation, known as Echelon, gave participating governments access to all the phone calls, emails, satellite communications and cell phones around the world. […]
Body Armour
Body armour is basically a layer of clothing designed to absorb and disperse the impact energy of a bullet. Modern body armour is designed to stop low velocity (handguns) and high velocity (rifles) with some manufacturers claiming protection from some types of armour-piercing rounds. The armour comes in both semi-rigid and rigid construction incorporating a […]
Cable from Kabul
All Frontline Club members have some connection to Afghanistan it seems. The former members of the Frontline TV Agency cut their teeth in the 1980s during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. So it seems fitting that Kabul is rapidly becoming a second meeting place for club members. Peter Jouvenal established the Gandamack Lodge in early […]
Shotguns and Stallions – June 06
I really never thought it would come to this. It all began back in the distant snowbound days of March when one of our closest neighbours – wearing what look like a goat-skin – turned up on our doorstep. “Dick shot my horse,” he declared by way of introduction. After some plodding around the subject […]
In-depth Charger
Serious, in-depth journalism may be unwell but it is still alive in Britain despite an almost complete lack of institutional support in television, and limited resources in print and radio. The definitions are many – but most would agree that investigative journalism is ‘normal’ journalism plus money and more importantly, plus time. Getting complicated, difficult […]
Frontline: The True Story of the British Mavericks who Changed the Face of War Reporting
This book is the history of a moment in television news, which was brief enough, yet so bright that it will stay in the minds of everyone who experienced it, like staring into a torch-beam on a dark night. Frontline still exists, as anyone knows if they have climbed up the steep stairs to the […]
Inside Out – May 06
Those of you who have climbed the final flight of stairs to our Frontline Forum will have seen three photographs of journalists on display. It’s an undeclared wall of honour recognising three outstanding journalists among the terrible toll that Richard Sambrook writes about this month. Kurt Schork was an exemplary American journalist admired not only […]
War and Peace
Peace Journalism is at best meaningless, and at worst a uniquely unhelpful and misleading prescription for journalism in general, and broadcast journalism in particular. Growing out of their Reporting the World series, Jake Lynch and Annabel McGoldrick demand nothing less than a ‘revolution’ in journalism practice, using this definition in their new book: “Peace Journalism […]
A Tribute to Martin Adler
The death of Martin Adler was not a surprise. It was a terrible shock, but not, truthfully, a surprise. If a man, no matter how professional and experienced, travels as widely as Martin did to the war zones of our troubled world then, almost inevitably, something bad will happen. Life-threatening environments are where film-makers like […]
Sony HVR – Z1U
Sony HVR – Z1U I bought the Sony Z1U camera in January 2006 and have used it fairly intensely in a professional capacity as a video journalist. I have worked as a video journalist for the past 12 years principally specialising in hostile environments and countries undergoing “transition”. main features:Switchable NTSC/PAL color system, 1080/60i, 1080/50iImage […]
Not so Great Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe has to be the only country in the world where helping the aged is a clandestine activity. One March morning in Bulawayo I received a cryptic SMS announcing “washing up liquid will arrive at 10.30am”. This was code for meeting the man who delivers food parcels to white pensioners. Everyone in Zimbabwe is terrified […]
Excerpts from Peace Journalism
Peace Journalism is when editors and reporters make choices – of what stories to report, and how to report them – which create opportunities for society at large to consider and to value non-violent responses to conflict. Peace Journalism: Uses the insights of conflict analysis and transformation to update the concepts of balance, fairness and […]
On the Road to Kandahar
No one knows how Britain’s Nato adventure in Afghanistan will end. Depending on who you listen to, it is either one of the most dangerous policing roles in the new age of asymmetric warfare, or a consolidation of the post-9/11 achievements of the international community. Military commanders who pick up Jason Burke’s Road to Kandahar […]
Press freedom
There is no greater threat to free societies than the murder of journalists. If journalists are not free to report, others eventually go blind: governments cannot see what’s going on at home or abroad, global institutions stagger, finance and business wither. Freedom of expression is recognized as essential to democracy and prosperity. However, 2005 was […]
The Tribes Triumphant
One of the great mysteries of our time is the awfulness of the American media. The world’s greatest nation gets its intelligence about the rest of the planet mainly from television, a medium dominated by air-headed bimbos and himbos – ‘I’m Cindy and he’s Grover’ – real-life car chases of narcoleptic tedium and the weather […]