News
Rob Crilly in Nairobi
Nairobi-based freelance journalist Rob Crilly is the latest addition to the blog stable at From the Frontline. Rob started blogging at South of West late last year. He’s been very busy with coverage from Kenya for The Times, Irish Times, Christian Science Monitor and The Daily Mail during the recent violence there. You can listen […]
Can You Give Me A Receipt – Oh and What’s Your Tribe?
Muindi is Kamba. Frank is Taita. And the two Johns are Kikuyu. The tribal identity of my taxi drivers in Nairobi never used to matter much. It would make for an interesting diversion to discuss stereotypes on long journeys: who is the faster out of Kamba and Kalenjin, or why exactly do Kikuyus confuse their […]
Global incident locator
Following on from the BBC’s Foreign Correspondent’s map of the world, I discover the Global Incident map. The idea is pretty simple. Incidents of terror, war, conflict and the like are fed into the map. You can click incidents to find out more and go to the original news source.
Andy McNab on Kabul hotels
[video:youtube:2iltEbDjM_M] Dominic Medley, a frequent visitor to Gandamack Lodge in Kabul and a founding member of the Frontline club, emails to tell me popular war novelist and ex-SAS man Andy McNab writes about the hotel scene in Kabul in his latest book, Crossfire. The author looks favorably upon the Gandamack lodge. Here are Dominic’s snippets […]
From the Frontline from Zimbabwe
Blogging from Zimbabwe is Zimbabaloola. This is latest addition to the From the Frontline stable of blogs. Zimbabaloola is an anonymous blog written by someone living in Zimbabwe. The blog will cover the elections in Zimbabwe, the reality for the people living there and what hyperinflation means on the streets of Harare and elsewhere. I’ll […]
Julius Strauss joins From the Frontline
Former war reporter, Julius Strauss is now blogging here at From the Frontline. Julius started his war reporting career as a freelance snapper during the Serbo-Croat and Bosnian wars. In 1996 he became the Daily Telegraph’s Balkans Correspondent. After covering the aftermath of the Bosnian war and the war in Kosovo he worked in Romania, […]
CBS staff kidnapped in Basra
The Guardian reports this morning that two employees of the US broadcaster CBS News have been kidnapped in Basra in southern Iraq. One is believed to be a British journalist, The UK journalist was seized by gunmen in Basra with his interpreter on Sunday, according to the Iraqi news agency Aswat al-Iraq (Voice of Iraq). […]
“NATO cannot advance”
Channel 4’s Alex Thomson and cameraman Stuart Webb report from Sangin valley in Afghanistan on an embed with British forces, Chief Correspondent Alex Thomson accompanied the marines up the Sangin valley to the Kajaki Dam. It was an assault on Taliban forces dug-in amongst the hills and valleys. A mission that ended in a bloody […]
Inflation
Everybody seems to have a different figure for inflation in Zimbabwe. The most commonly used is 24000 percent, though occasionally one still sees the government figure of 8000 percent. That’s year ON year, of course. I’ve used the inflation calculator here to get an idea of what the numbers should be. Take the price of […]
The options as Zimbabwe heads to the polls
Everyone is talking about Simba Makoni. It’s a measure of how sclerotic Zimbabwean politics has become that this 57 year is considered a youthful challenger. But then our president is 84, and most of his closest colleagues are in their late 70’s and early 80’s, so by current standards Simba is indeed the Young Lion. […]
War reporter trauma
Ian Stewart, former West Africa bureau chief for AP, was shot by a boy soldier while travelling in a car through Freetown in Sierra Leone in 1999. The bullet lodged in the back of his brain and left him paralyzed. He recounted the experience, subsequent trauma and “survivor guilt” at the weekend during a conference […]
Journalist murdered in Quetta
Paramedical workers carry the body of famous journalist Dr Chishti Mujahid on an ambulance – PakTribune According to The Daily Times Dr. Chishti Mujahid, a senior journalist and press photographer, was shot dead in Quetta on Saturday morning. The banned militant group, the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), has claimed responsibility for the murder. Dr. Mujahid […]
Violence against journalists surged this week
The developments in the Lydia Cacho case and her revelations yesterday come in a week when violence against journalists surged again. Last year four reporters were murdered and three disappeared, and 2008 is promising to be as equally violent for members of the profession.
Supreme Court Judges Were Bribed, says Cacho
The Supreme Court judges who voted that the rights of Lydia Cacho were not violated enough when she was arrested, detained and tortured by Puebla’s police under the orders of Governor Mario Marin were paid off by Marin’s lawyers, according to the journalist. Cacho made the accusation, which if true promises to scandalize Mexico’s Supreme […]
Tim Hetherington wins 2008 World Press Photo Award
Great to hear that Frontline club founding member – the photographer Tim Hetherington – has won the prestigious World Press Photo Award 2008 for the photo above. Tim has previously presented his pictures and talked about them at the Frontline Club, The international jury of the 51st annual World Press Photo Contest selected a color […]
Grigory Pasko on Russian media
[video:youtube:n9OUmV-B14M] Journalist and blogger Grigory Pasko talks about how the murder of Anna Politkovskaya changed freedom of press in Russia, and discusses the new role of the internet.
Baghdad rental
I’ve just finished listening to this and it’s superb. This American Life is an excellent weekly podcast and the episode that I just noticed in my subscription folder will no doubt have Frontline folk who’ve lived and worked in Iraq in stitches, Radio reporter Adam Davidson went to Iraq to report on the war. He […]
Photojournalists on photojournalism
[video:youtube:6kFxY4yGbQA] Mediabistro runs a session on photojournalism with freelancers and staff snappers from Getty, The Washington Post, AP and Sipa Press. How is the newsroom changing, how is the rise of digital impacting print media and, especially, what is this multimedia journalism malarkey all about? link
We need puppy dogs in Iraq
[video:youtube:LDy7vn7-LX4] Billionaire Sam Zell who owns the Tribune Company (Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and New York Newsday) fires off two barrels during a Q&A at the Orlando Sentinel. Photographer Sara Fajardo questioned the media moghul twice about softening news coverage and Zell was not best pleased. Gawker has more, The journalist in the […]
Ernesto Londono heads to Baghdad
Media Bistro picks up on a memo stating that Ernesto Londono becomes the newest member of the Foreign section of the Washington Post. As of next month he will be stationed in Baghdad where he’ll join Sudarsan Raghavan and correspondent Amit Paley. Londono succeeds Josh Partlow who is coming to the end of tour. Ernesto […]
War correspondent dies in ski accident
Retired ABC News war correspondent John McWethy has died while skiing in Colorado. He ran into a tree at on the intermediate ‘Porcupine’ trail at Keystone Ski Resort on Wednesday morning, According to Summit County Coroner Joanne Richardson, John McWethy was skiing fast and missed a turn, sliding chest-first into a tree. Richardson ruled the […]
The batteries are running down
46 year old Sebastian Junger launched his career as a war reporter 15 years ago by travelling to Bosnia with no credentials or contacts. Following a stint in Nigeria, where he reported on militants attacking foreign oil companies, he ended up spending last year with U.S. soldiers in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan. Talking to […]
It’s too dangerous
ABC News war correspondent, Terry McCarthy, talks about working in Iraq and how it is almost impossible to report from outside the green zone, “It’s a very dangerous war to cover and to go out and get those ‘feel good’ stories,” he said. “Being out among the people is extremely dangerous, so we have to […]
Missing Burmese blogger spotted
IFEX reports that a Burmese blogger has gone missing from his home in Rangoon. The blogger, Nay Phone Latt, was allegedly arrested on 29 January according to his mother, Daw Aye Aye Than. Although her son’s whereabouts cannot be confirmed, eyewitness accounts on Mizzima suggest he is being held at the Ministry of Home Affairs, […]
Touch and go journalism
In Tehran, and blogging for the LA Times, Ramin Mostaghim talks about how one western journalist (+ editor) were flown in – to an alleged Ministry of Intelligence hotspot-come-hotel – to interview President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and promptly flown out again after the interview. Ramin argues this kind of “touch-and-go journalism” has become all too common […]
Lawrence Kaplan launches World Affairs
Politico discusses the launch of a new quarterly called World Affairs with Lawrence Kaplan. Kaplan has reported from Iraq for The New Republic six times. He hopes that World Affairs contributors “can explain the world to people like me, who really don’t know what to believe anymore.†The ten member editorial board includes Christopher Hitchens, […]
The death of war reporting
[video:brightcove: 1260649123] Frontline Club Honorary member and occasional speaker at the club talks about the death of war reporting and lamentable state of the news in general on The Guardian’s Comment is free site, The death of war reporting is an inevitable consequence of the increasing dangers out there. The worst that could happen in […]
R.K. Karanjia 1912 – 2008
The New Post India reports that veteran journalist, editor and war correspondent Russi K. Karanjia passed away in Mumbai last Friday. He was 95. During World War II, he worked as a war correspondent, reporting from the front lines in Burma and the Assam region of India. He became famous in 1945 for publishing exclusive […]
Video: tequila, gun-fire and dancing in the streets
The pueblo of Santa Maria Aztahuacan in the sprawling working class municipality of Iztapalapa, Mexico City, got Semana Santa off to a rousing start this Saturday afternoon with dancing in the streets, tacos, tequila – and random gunfire. The festival, which began this weekend, will run for the next month. MexicoReporter.com went along to get […]
The death of a war reporter
Ernie Pyle is one of the most celebrated war correspondents. He made his name during World War II and was killed by the Japanese sixty-three years ago. A picture showing the death of Pyle recently surfaced. The negative has long since been lost and only a few prints exist, “It’s a striking and painful image, […]
