Frontline Club bloggers
US Navy “burning the boats” to join social media conversation
A speech on the US Navy’s approach to communications by Admiral Gary Roughead has surfaced in my Twitter feed. The Admiral is the US Chief of Naval Operations and he gave these remarks to a Public Relations Strategic Communications Summit in June. The general message is that the US Navy realised it could no longer […]
Meeting Moussa Kaka
The headquarters of Moussa Kaka’s relatively new enterprise Saraounia Radio (it means ‘the Queen’ in Hausa) is an unassuming tiled building in downtown Niamey, capital of Niger. Inside the radio station too, it’s modest. They have a few computers with digital editing software and an air-conditioned studio; antennae and a multitude of satellite links connecting […]
The role of social media in the UK riots
"The ability to communicate to groups of people easily and on a regular basis is more powerful than previous incarnations of ‘word of mouth’ technologies." Click here for more on the BBC College of Journalism website…
visa politics
I cried, I swore, I banged my head off the kitchen working top and then lay awake all night worrying, but finally I did get my visa for Niger. It was a wonderful meeting of bureaucracy, ‘Escroquerie’ as they say, and British officiousness. I should have paid attention to the warning bells when I found […]
BBC journalist detained in Egypt
The BBC’s Shaimaa Khalil has been arrested in Egypt while reporting from Cairo. She had travelled to Tahrir Square after Egyptian security forces had moved in to clear the area of protesters. The demonstrators have been demanding swifter political change from Egypt’s military generals amid concerns that the revolution which brought down President Hosni Mubarak […]
The effect social media is having on African newsgathering
Following on from my last blog post about how hand-held video cameras are transforming the way reporters in Africa are doing their jobs, I thought it’s also worth looking at the effect social media is having on African newsgathering. The picture is completely mixed across the continent. There are some countries, such as Nigeria, Kenya […]
Afghan transition: Just another word for nothing left to lose?
Afghanistan appears on the verge of collapse. The prospect of civil war looms. Political gridlock; the impending collapse of the banking system; falling currency and property values; endemic corruption; capital flight; frozen aid funding; escalating insurgent attacks; ethnic groups planning to re-arm; a power vacuum in the south; targeted assassinations… this is the landscape of […]
Video-making made simpler!
Two years ago I made my first film (about a massacre in the Central African Republic) using a small Canon digital video camera and editing software borrowed from a friend. I didn’t have a tripod, so I had to ask my translator in the field to hold the camera steady while I attempted a piece […]
BBC journalists reflect on the nature of war reporting
BBC World Affairs Producer Stuart Hughes recently gave a talk on war reporting to a summer school at the London School of Economics. He has uploaded his slides and videos onto YouTube. Inevitably there are a few slides which won’t mean much without the benefit of Hughes’s words overlaid but he has included several interviews […]
Fictional ‘Gay Girl in Damascus’ blog disappears
The ‘Gay Girl in Damascus’ blog, which was believed to have provided an authentic voice documenting the Syrian chapter of the Arab Spring, has "vanished". The author of the blog, Tom MacMaster, apparently decided to delete the contents of the blog after it reached more than a million "separate views". The blog had claimed to […]
Hunger in the Horn of Africa
I found this blog by Simon Levine at the Overseas Development Institute an interesting discussion on the politics of famine. http://blogs.odi.org.uk/blogs/main/archive/2011/07/06/horn_of_africa_famine_2011_humanitarian_system.aspx It focuses on the hunger ravaging the Horn of Africa, with thousands of Somalis turning up at the Dadaab refugee camp in northern Kenya every day. His main argument is that famines only tend […]
Terror in Mumbai and the evolution of crisis communications
Several hours ago, three explosions hit the Indian city of Mumbai. At the current time (18h00 GMT), reports suggest seventeen people have been killed and 81 injured. Less than three years after the siege of 26/11, the citizens of Mumbai are facing the consequences of another terror attack. It is hardly a surprise that people […]
For Afghan first nephews, US passports are ticket out of chaos
The assassination of Ahmad Wali Karzai, the Afghan president’s half-brother, has dealt a huge blow to transition plans and is likely to lead to major power struggles across the country’s south as rival clans fight to fill the power vacuum created by his death. What may effectively become a civil war could undermine the security […]
No more power cuts in Chad?
Chad’s new oil refinery at Djermaya has opened on schedule. Hopefully this should end the dark days (and nights) for N’Djamenois who are used to the city electricity supply going off for anything up to three months at a time. When I first arrived in Chad in 2008, I remember distinctly the eeriness of sunset, as […]
The iPhone for war photographers
For many journalists, the iPhone has become a standard part of the toolset. But it’s also being tested to the limit by war reporters. A couple of interesting experiments from Afghanistan caught my eye this morning documenting ventures in the photographic potential of the iPhone. First, this piece in The Guardian highlighting its use by Teru […]
Welcome South Sudan
I thought it would be a nice idea to make my first entry on this blog a celebration of the birth of South Sudan. After years of neglect or reports of the horror of the war which raged on and off for close to fifty years, how wonderful to see the unbridled joy reported by […]
The dangers of reporting Ciudad Juarez
Daniel Dominguez, one of the hard-worked crime reporters on El Diario, the biggest newspaper in Ciudad Juarez, was kind enough to let me spend the day with him last week. Here’s the report I produced for AFP, which you can also see here on YouTube. The same video is also embedded below, in case of […]
Hackgate: a week of extraordinary revelations
When the story broke on Monday that the News of the World (NOTW) allegedly hacked the phone of missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler and her family in March 2002, a public outcry ensued. Every day since has seen a new revelation in the scandal, with almost hourly developments culminating yesterday in the NOTW being closed down […]
Video: Assange, Žižek and Goodman in conversation
Download this episode View in iTunes Watch the event here. On Saturday 2 July at 4pm GMT (11am EST; 8pm AEST), this page will host a live stream of Frontline Club’s special “in conversation” event featuring WikiLeaks editor-and-chief Julian Assange in conversation with Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, moderated by Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman… (live […]
Hacking scandal will bring seismic change to British media
Britain’s media industry is about to undergo seismic change. The implications of the latest revelations about journalists hacking telephone voicemail systems have clearly shown that the country’s famously feisty and fiercely independent news outlets are incapable of self regulation. Senior executives of News International are under a harsh spotlight as it becomes ever more evident […]
Journalists detained in Ethiopia to stand trial
Two Swedish journalists have been taken in to custody by the army in Ethiopia, and are set to stand trial over yet unknown charges. Freelancers Johan Persson and Martin Schibbye entered Ethiopia from Somalia, and were reporting on the ongoing conflict between Somali guerrillas and the Ethopian state. The last person to see Persson and […]
WikiLeaks ‘blackmailed’ over Bank of America leaks
Whistleblower website WikiLeaks is under a “kind of blackmail” over leaked Bank of America documents, according to the organisation’s editor-in-chief, Julian Assange. Speaking at a special Frontline Club event on Saturday alongside renowned philosopher Slavoj Žižek and investigative journalist Amy Goodman, Assange spoke at length about the pressures faced by WikiLeaks amid a political backlash. […]
LIVE BLOG: Assange, Žižek and Goodman
Today at 4pm GMT (11am EST; 8pm AEST) Frontline Club will host a special "in conversation" event featuring WikiLeaks editor-and-chief Julian Assange in conversation with Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, moderated by Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman. On this page we will be blogging updates live from the Troxy in East London, with updates from behind the […]
Žižek: WikiLeaks is a threat to power
This Saturday (2 July) renowned Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek will appear at a special Frontline Club “in conversation” event alongside WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange and award winning investigative journalist Amy Goodman. Widely held as one of the most influential living philosophers – and once described as “the Elvis of cultural theory” – Žižek will discuss […]
WikiLeaks’ Assange too controversial for London university
Frontline Club’s upcoming event featuring WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange and renowned Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek was deemed too controversial for the University of London’s Institute of Education (IOE). The event, which will take place on 2 July at the Troxy in East London, had originally been tentatively scheduled to take place at Logan Hall, a […]
Afghan free media is a matter of time, says one who should know
Afghanistan’s media industry is one of the youngest and most vibrant in the world, having burst into life to fill the vacuum left just 10 years ago by the demise of the Taliban. From a country without music or movies, Afghanistan is now jam-packed with radio, television, newspapers, magazines, film, music and theatre. Much comes […]
‘Harassed’ US journalist fights to protect source
A Pulitzer prize-winning New York Times journalist is being pressured by the Obama administration to reveal the identity of a whistleblower. James Risen, who wrote extensively about the Bush administration’s domestic wiretapping programme, has been issued a subpoena forcing him to testify as part of the prosecution of Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA agent whom […]
BBC appeal for release of detained Tajikistan reporter
The BBC World Service is “highly concerned” about the safety of their correspondent in Tajikistan, Urunboy Usmonov, who has been detained in the country for a week without regular access to his lawyer. A statement was made by the BBC on June 16 condemning the detention and demanding the immediate release of Usmonov. But despite […]
Australian media access to Afghan mission vital for understanding
It’s been a bad year for the Australian military fighting in Afghanistan. Three soldiers were killed in May, another in early June, bringing the total to 27 since Australia committed troops to the coalition that invaded Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in 2001. The deaths highlighted for Australians the reality of being at war and led to calls […]
Kazan: Last chance for an Armenia-Azerbaijan peace?
16.7 kilometers south of Lachin, Armenian-controlled Azerbaijan © Onnik Krikorian for IWPR Expectations of ending the long-running conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh are high ahead of a meeting between the two presidents hosted by Russian President Dimitry Medvedev in Kazan on 25 June. The war fought in the early 1990s […]