Forum Blog
Frontline Club Quiz – Members and guests only
with Quiz Master Marcus Berkmann. Enter as a team (up to 6 people) or as an individual. The quiz will last two hours and includes a break. Free drinks and books for the winners. £5 entry per person donated to the Fixers’ Fund.
‘Two-bit blogging’: an example
A couple of bits and pieces I picked up today. Literally – a couple: 1. Noah Shachtman, editor of the Danger Room at Wired, is (almost) accused of being a ‘two-bit blogger’ by a spokesman for Donald Rumsfeld: "I think if you’re going to accuse Rumsfeld of ‘blowing the war in Afghanistan’ and do it […]
Blogging military blogging
I came across a blog called Soldiers in the blogosphere recently. It’s run by an active duty US Army Major, Jakob Bruhl, and is part of his graduation requirement from the Air Command and Staff College. Maj Bruhl discusses whether soldiers should be encouraged to write blogs and over the last few weeks he has […]
JJ’s birthday
Thanks to everyone for joining JJ for birthday drinks last night. It was great fun. Here is a pic of JJ last night. He was very happy.
US military revisits blogging
The US military remains at the forefront of social media and military policy but recently new questions about the value of blogging have been raised. There has been plenty of debate in particular on the US Army Combined Arms Center site about the role of blogs as a means of strategic communication. Apparently, ‘the US […]
Chicken Roundabout
A friend of mine lives near here and so do I, but we only realised how close we are when we started talking about the chicken roundabout. Chicken roundabout is a unique, and special place where a colony of chickens have managed to inhabit a busy roundabout on the A143 busy main route through East […]
And the next Club Quiz is booked for 30th March
Marcus Berkmann is preparing our next quiz. Again, it will be £5 (donation to the fixers’ fund) to enter, maximum 6 people per team. We start at 7pm, 30th March.
Snowdrops
More and more snowdrops are appearing everywhere in the farm. Spring is not far away. I can’t wait.
Whitehouse.gov launches blog as Barack Obama is sworn in as President
So change has come to America. And change has come to the White House website. The new administration has launched a Presidential blog. It will ‘serve as a place for the President and his administration to connect with the rest of the nation and the world’. No promises that the President will be doing the […]
Gaza media coverage – BBC bits and bobs
Just a couple of other things I picked up today from the BBC. 1. Here’s Robin Lustig’s blog again, writing from a point of view on Gaza. “You want to know what it’s like in Gaza at the moment? It’s Hell on earth. But that’s nothing new – it’s always Hell on earth here. Since […]
On the road with Robert Adams
Robert Adams, one of the original Frontline TV cameramen and a founder member of the Frontline Club, is on the road. For six months Rob, his family and some friends will be on the road in Africa. From their home in Harare they’ll head to Cairo, Cape Town and back to Harare and all points […]
Thinking of going to Somalia?
Well if you are, Rob has some sage advice… and be sure to read the comments. Frontline bloggers David and Alex both blogged from Somalia earlier this year. I hope they don’t go back for a while. Not sure my nerves could take it.
Mumbai – twitter, blogging, and social media
I’m collecting a series of links on how Mumbai has been covered by blogs and social media. You can find all the links on my delicious account.
The only Twitter user in Kanadahar?
Is Alex the only Twitter user in Kanadahar? I think he probably is. Frontline blogger Alex talks about his life, his work and Twittering from Kandahar on the Tech Radar blog. “Get yourself set up with a Twitter account. It’s a nice, low-cost way of letting people know if you get into trouble or are […]
Donations for David Axe
Frontline blogger David Axe is heading to the Horn of Africa again and is looking for donations, Six months ago my readers contributed nearly $2,000 to help me fund a month reporting from Central Africa. This time around I’m asking for $3,000 to help jump-start my piracy coverage. Donations will help pay for air fare, […]
Massive explosion in Kandahar
Frontline blogger Alex was in Kandahar when a “huge explosion near Kandahar stadium” went off. I caught up on this a bit late as I’ve been training all day, but Alex had the wherewithall to poke his head on to the balcony, snap some shots, send a series of messages to Twitter, upload a picture […]
Daniel Bennett on the Nick Meo brouhaha
Frontline blogger Dan is doing a great job trying to get to the bottom of a rather confused story relating to Nick Meo’s report on a bomb explosion just outside Kandahar recently. I recommend you go and read through both Dan’s posts on this. Start with the summary of the debate that continues to rage […]
Live from the Baghdad embed
Eric Owles, a journalist embedded with US forces in Iraq, answers questions from readers on the New York Times Baghdad Bureau blog. The post is part of a series of embed posts on the NYTimes blog Q. Are you given special training ( Boot Camp for Journalists?) so that you’re qualified to be embedded with […]
Saddam Hussein’s nephew blogging?
This is the sort of post that comes with a significant disclaimer – I can’t entirely verify the authenticity of the blog. But I thought I’d point you in the direction of a blog whose author claims to be one of Saddam Hussein’s nephews, Al-Hussain Arshad Yassin. In this post Al-Hussain offers a defence of […]
WRL: Reporting Afghanistan and the secret service blog
1. ‘Bill-and-Bob’, who describes himself as a ‘citizen soldier with 26 years of service’, comments on US media coverage of the war in Afghanistan: “Wars are expensive. The war became tedious on television news and the sensationalization of the American death toll became a daily litany that constantly reminded the American public that we were […]
9/11: “A galvanising point for the blogging world”
In Reporting War, Barbie Zelizer and Stuart Allan suggest that the attack on the World Trade Center seven years ago was a significant moment in the history of war reporting. As mainstream media servers struggled to cope with the volumes of traffic accessing their websites, bloggers inevitably dropped their usual subjects and began piecing together […]
Blogging from the Middle East
Jaron Gilinsky, a Jerusalem-based video journalist and editor Falafel TV, guests on Mark Glaser’s MediaShift blog this week. He discusses how blogs are helping humanize conflict in the Middle East, If you can find the good blogs, you will be exposed to a very real slice of Middle Eastern reality that wasn’t possible 10 years […]
John Hemming hitches a Humvee to Kandahar
Jon Hemming Reuters chief correspondent in Afghanistan, heads to Kandahar with a convoy of U.S. troops, Normally as a reporter driving around Kabul, I take great care to avoid being anywhere near a foreign military convoy as they are the Taliban’s favorite target. But when you’re inside a Humvee, the tables are turned and you […]
Blogs ‘fail’ in coverage of Russo-Georgia War
Joshua Foust argues that blogs have not lived up to expectations in covering the Russo-Georgia War. He homes in on what he describes as ‘large blogs’- the Small War Journal, Instapundit, the Washington Monthly etc. He’s disappointed that they seem to have relied on the same set of sources as the mainstream media: Soon after […]
Russo-Georgia War: cyber-propaganda
“In its war with Georgia, the first truly global user-generated conflict, Russia’s digital guerillas have been drafted into a state-waged propaganda war” The opening paragraph of an excellent article by Evgeny Morozov on Open Democracy. He argues that the Web’s democratic potential has been undermined by the agendas of nation-states and maintains that ‘digital guerillas’ […]
Live from Kandahar… soon
[video:youtube:VOiLs95QpV8] Frontline blogger Alex made his way down to Kandahar last week – you can see a bit of his recent journey through Arghandab district in the short clip above. He’ll be based in the southern province for the next eight or nine months. Well worth keeping an eye on his blog. He’s putting up […]
Cyberwar, blogging and other Russo-Georgia War links
I’ve just got back from an all too brief holiday and this morning I’ve been collecting some stuff on the conflict between Russian and Georgian forces in South Ossetia and beyond. 1. While most of the attention has rightly been on the physical war that has been costing Russian and Georgian lives, Wired has nevertheless […]
Top tips for reporting from Sudan
Heading to Sudan? Ever wondered what to look out for? Rob has the lowdown with his top tips for working in the African nation. I particularly liked number five, Don’t bear an uncanny resemblance to the previous BBC stringer who got kicked out. link
Frontline Twitter power
I’m on holiday for a week, but I’d like to send you all over to Daniel’s blog. He’s blogging a series about the journalistic uses of Twitter. Meanwhile, Deborah in Mexico talks about her multimedia blogging work for the LA Times. And Rob is grumbling about the price of swimming lessons in Sudan, $40 – […]
Using Twitter to follow the Bangalore bomb blasts
A series of bombs was detonated in Bangalore earlier today. The latest reports indicate that seven devices exploded, in five different locations in the Indian city. The police have confirmed that at least two people died in the attacks. Mukund Mohan, a technology entrepreneur, has been reporting on the events using microblogging tool, Twitter. He […]