Journalism
#FreeAlaa: ‘You Have Not Yet Been Defeated’
Day 54 of the hunger strike: British-Egyptian writer, blogger and political activist Alaa Abd-El-Fattah is, yet again, in prison.
A Moment of High Peril
Vladimir Putin appears to be running short of men and materiel in Ukraine. He may be about to play dirty… READ HERE
#FCBBCA Cyber snooping: In whose hands should internet governance be entrusted?
By Doug Brown A packed audience filled the Frontline Club forum on 23rd October to hear a panel tackle the question: In whose hands should internet governance be entrusted? Chaired by the Chief Executive of Index on Censorship Kirsty Hughes the event, in association with BBC Arabic, featured: Icelandic MP Birgitta Jónsdóttir; developer for The Tor Project, Jacob Appelbaum; independent media technology […]
Communicating about Syria – A humanitarian perspective
By Sally Ashley-Cound The conflict and humanitarian issues Syria faces is at the forefront of many peoples minds at the moment, this was reflected by the full house that gathered at the Frontline Club’s panel discussion, Communicating about Syria – A humanitarian perspective on 10th October. Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4 News’ International Editor chaired a […]
Graham Greene: A Finger on the Pulse of the 20th Century
By Jim Treadway "He was there!" Director Thomas O’Connor said of English author and journalist Graham Greene (1904-1991), the subject of his documentary Dangerous Edge: A Life of Graham Greene, which was viewed by a full house at the Frontline Club on 1 October. "There, you know, for 70 years, from one place to another, […]
Deadline Every Second: On the road with photojournalists
“I wanted to show the range that photojournalists do, and I wanted to somehow grasp the idea that they could be doing a basketball game in the afternoon and going to Haiti that night. I think it’s one of the most remarkable things that these people are able to do so many things and do […]
Ryszard Kapuściński: Where does journalism end and literature begin?
By Rebecca Omonira The significance of Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński was the topic of a heated debate at the Frontline Club on 19 September. Fans and a few critics flocked to the Frontline Club to discuss the writers’ life with: renowned Polish journalist and recent Kapuściński biographer, Artur Domoslawski; Victoria Brittain, former associate foreign editor at the […]
“Poetry on a deadline” – remembering Anthony Shadid
By Merryn Johnson A gathering at the Frontline Club was held in remembrance for Anthony Shadid, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner, who died in February this year while crossing the border out of Syria. The room was filled with family, friends and colleagues, including his wife, Nada Bakri; Jonathan Rugman, foreign affairs correspondent at Channel 4 News […]
Insight with Lydia Cacho: Slavery Inc.
By Jim Treadway In Mexico over the past decade, several dozen journalists have been killed, abducted, and tortured. Crime flourishes, and ties between cartels and politicians are deeply intertwined. Yet journalist Lydia Cacho has persisted in uncovering these networks, risking her life to tell the stories of their victims and reveal the businessmen and politicians […]
After Leveson? A ‘State of the News Media’ report for the UK
With each day of Leveson evidence new stones are overturned, shedding more light on the wider systemic and cultural problems that contributed to the phone-hacking scandal. The ‘post-Leveson’ question becomes ever more pressing, as identified at yesterday’s University of Westminster conference, attended by a range of international media researchers, as well as regulation and legal specialists. […]
The First Freelance News Safety Survey
The Frontline Club’s News Safety Initiative was launched on 8 May 2012 with a meeting of news industry decision-makers, leading practitioners and freelances, at the Frontline Club. The meeting was a great success and it was clear that everyone wanted us to take the best ideas forward.
Writing Libya’s revolution
By Richard Nield Speaking to a packed Frontline Club on 26th April, Channel 4 News’ International Editor Lindsey Hilsum shared a fascinating personal insight into the revolution in Libya last year that overthrew the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi after 42 years in power. In Hilsum’s words, Libya was the "only true revolution of last […]
Are cheap, local hires saving or ruining foreign reporting?
By Helena Williams Foreign reporting is changing. With news outlets’ budgets tightening, and competition, pressure and risks on the rise, foreign journalists working in conflict countries are abandoning traditional methods of reporting in favour of using cheap, local hires to get the story: “It used to be that you were a local journalist, and treated […]
Apps for the Paps
By Thomas Lowe It could have made no sense. But with a gently-gently approach to explaining new apps and why they exist, the gap between the journo geeks and the journo technophobes was momentarily bridged – with a little help from the BBC’s technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones. Empowerment: Former photographer for the dailies, Christian […]
It’s the Military, Stupid
By Thomas Lowe ‘Memogate’, nuclear weapons, Bin Laden, Imran Khan, US foreign policy, Afghanistan – it seems that global issues are destined to pass through Pakistan. But it’s the vast military apparatus at the very centre of the state of Pakistan that took the attention of the Frontline panel – and demanded the mediation skills […]
The promise and peril of the Arab revolution
“’It came out of nowhere because of Facebook and Google’ is not true. It was a long time coming.”
Defending collaboration, with A. A. Gill and Tom Craig
View event here. By Alan Selby The advent of new media has seen an increasing pressure placed upon journalists to become multidisciplinary, but often to the detriment of each medium. During an evening moderated by David Campany, reader in photography at Westminster University, writer A. A. Gill and photographer Tom Craig mounted an impassioned defence […]
Frei at The Frontline Club
By Alan Selby A packed house at The Frontline Club heard Matt Frei regale them with tales from his long and illustrious career. The former BBC Washington correspondent, recently poached by Channel 4 News, was on fine form as he spoke to former BBC executive Vin Ray about more than 20 years with the BBC: […]
Matt Frei and the ‘light touch’ (five tips for journalists)
By Thomas Lowe In conversation with Vin Ray, Matt Frei let us into the deepest, darkest and funniest recesses of his journalistic mind. Here is his advice for putting together a good story for television. 1. Pictures Writing well for TV is quite simple, Frei says. The lesson is just to “get out of the way” of the […]
Screening: Darkhead
By Charlene Rodrigues Torn by a lack of cultural identity, a Schwarzkopf or “Darkhead” is the word European born immigrants use to define themselves in Austria. Arman T. Riahi’s documentary of the same name is a portrait of immigrant life in Austria, and follows Nazar, an Austro-Iranian 25-year-old rapper, as he and his […]
Marie Colvin: “committed to telling the real story of war”
Friends and colleagues of Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin gathered at the Frontline Club last night after hearing of her death during a rocket attack on the besieged city of Homs. There were many tributes to Marie Colvin – and great stories – all recognising the qualities that made her a great journalist and remarkable […]
Rebuilding Libya
View in iTunes Watch the event here. By Alan Selby Much has happened since this time last year. The 15th of February 2011 saw the first Libyans take to the streets of Benghazi against a brutal dictatorship which ruled over them for 42 years. The events that followed sent shockwaves around the world, led to a […]
Screening: Bahrain: Shooting in the Dark Q&A with May Welsh, Jon Blair, and ex-Bahraini MP
By Ivana Davidovic "With our souls, with our blood, we would sacrifice anything for you Bahrain" people chanted on the streets of Bahrain. In February 2011, while the media glare was firmly focused on the uprising in Egypt, the Bahraini people were left to shout in the dark. One of their rare witnesses […]
Part 1: Frontline Club discusses Italian press after Berlusconi
Watch the event here. By Will Turvill The Frontline Club last night hosted a lively and informative discussion on what the future might hold for Italian media in the post-Berlusconi era. The event was hosted by BBC Radio 4 presenter Steve Hewlett who was joined on the panel by four Italians and an Anglo-Italian lecturer […]
American Muslim: Freedom, Faith and Fear
By Alan Selby A lot has changed in the years since 9/11. The date itself has become emblematic of a change in attitudes towards Islam, perhaps most notably in the country which bore witness to the infamous attacks that day. Popular opinion has shifted, and the land of the free has become an increasingly […]
How to become a freelance foreign correspondent
By Helena Williams Last year was the year of the freelance foreign correspondent. The tumultuous events of 2011 gave freelance journalists unprecedented access to breathless, breaking news stories in the Arab world – unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, where embedding restrictions applied, freelancers were free to travel and compete on the frontline. With the increasing attraction […]
The Leveson Inquiry comes to Frontline – what have we learned?
By Thomas Lowe Passionate exchanges, heckling from the audience and caustic wit – that’s what you get when a panel of journalists sit down to discuss what Peter Wilby described as the media’s ‘truth and reconciliation commission’. Anne Diamond, who now hosts the Anne Diamond show on Berkshire radio believes she was ‘targeted’ by Rupert […]
Frontline watches the rise and fall of Yugoslavian film in Cinema Komunisto
By William Turvill The end of the Frontline Club’s screening season was marked, on Sunday 27 November, with the showing of Cinema Komunisto, featuring a subsequent question and answer discussion led by one of the film’s producers, Iva Plemic. The film, created by a group of young filmmakers from Serbia, documents the creation and collapse […]
Reporting conflict: competition, pressure and risks
View in iTunes Watch the event here. By Helena Williams In a year where 100 journalists have been killed so far while trying to tell the story, and as the media’s coverage of events rocking the Middle East have been brought into sharp relief, it seems high time to examine the delicate relationship between ensuring the […]
Shedding light in darkness: Kate Brooks and capturing the Middle East
Last night’s Frontline Club event – In the Picture: Kate Brooks: A decade on the front line – shed some light on the motives behind Brooks’ incredible life: beautiful photography, capturing every shade of human emotion, from hope and happiness, to despair, and everything in between.