Search results for “daniel bennett”
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Five years since the first tweet: a Twitter revolution in breaking news
Today, Twitter is celebrating its birthday. Five years after the first tweet was published, its impact on the field of Internet communication and many others beyond has been much debated. Recent events in Tunisia and Egypt re-ignited the debate over Twitter’s role in the political process and whether the world has seen its first Twitter […]
Some thoughts on Wikileaks, the media and the truth
This was the second time I’d seen Julian Assange speak at the Frontline Club. A few months ago, the small club room was lined with TV cameras as the Wikileaks founder launched the Afghan War Logs leak. The audience of journalists that day were sceptical and were looking for a news line – they pushed […]
Blogging and Beyond
The Trainer says…“It can be a bit bewildering to know how and where to begin in online publishing. This course will plunge you straight into the deep end of the social media world. You’ll quickly learn that you don’t need to be an IT consultant to set up a blog and build a mini social […]
Revisiting Moldova’s ‘Twitter Revolution’
I don’t usually crosspost, so if you’ve seen this post (which also a couple of interesting comments now) on the Media140 blog there’ll be nothing new below, but I hope you’ll forgive me for doing so on this occasion. The intro in italics was written by Dee Jackson, the Editor of the Media140 blog. I’m […]
Secretary of Defence: “Afghanistan first”
The British Secretary of Defence said operations in Afghanistan must take priority in the next Strategic Defence Review in a speech at King’s College, London. Bob Ainsworth said longer term strategic considerations should be secondary to providing the necessary equipment and manpower to British Armed Forces in Afghanistan. Ainsworth conceded that there was "significant" pressure […]
Frontline Club on Twitter
If you use the increasingly popular microblogging service Twitter, you might be interested to know who is on Twitter from the Frontline blogs, how often they tweet and how to follow them. First up, you’ll need an account, Second, find and follow the bloggers that interest you most. Here’s a round up of Frontline bloggers […]
More on Twitter and Moldova
You can find the latest on the progress of the dispute over Moldova’s election over at Reuters and the BBC. The government has agreed to recount the votes from the elections on 5 April. Opposition parties say this course of action takes no account of their concerns over fradulent voter lists. They are also worried […]
The myth of the Moldova ‘Twitter revolution’
According to the BBC thousands of protesters descended on Moldova’s parliament building yesterday to demonstrate against the Communist Party’s victory in last Sunday’s elections. The protesters are thought to be primarily made up of students and young people who claim the results of the election were fradulent despite being approved by election monitors. Twitter Unsurprisingly […]
Live tonight: Stephen Grey on investigative journalism in Helmand
You can now watch the event here. Stephen Grey will be at the Frontline Club tonight to discuss his investigative journalism work in Helmand province, Afghanistan. As usual, if you can’t make it to the club in person, we’ll be streaming the event live on the Frontline Club live channel and in the video […]
Ala Mortaji killed in Gaza as media outlets targetted
Ala Mortaji, a radio journalist in Gaza, has died on Friday from wounds sustained when Israeli tanks fired at his home in Zaitoun district of Gaza City, Mortaji is the third journalist to be killed in the Israeli violence in Gaza, he worked as a radio broadcast personality in Gaza on a local radio show. […]
For the truth to get out, journalists have to get in
Journalists still can’t get into Gaza. The Israeli government have banned media access to the war torn strip. The result for foreign reporters, on the 11th day of this war, is that hundreds of them sit at border points waiting to be granted access by Israeli authorities. The ban flies in the face of a […]
AP vs. Bloggers
As freelance word rates go, $2.50 per word isn’t bad. It’s what you might expect from some of the higher end magazines in the US. However, it might not be what you expect the Associated Press (AP) to charge bloggers for quoting AP material.In June the newswire filed a lawsuit against Rogers Cadenhead, publisher of […]
So, what is the future for news?
I have no idea… Well, I have some ideas, but I’m not blogging about them just yet. However, our very own Daniel Bennett puts together a useful future of news primer on his personal blog Mediating Conflict. One of the folks Daniel highlights is Adam Timworth, ‘If you were to ask a group of people […]
Dan joins the frontline
Welcome to Daniel Bennett, the latest addition to the From the Frontline blog. Daniel offers a unique perspective here. As he says on his blog he is “a PhD student researching the impact of blogging and new media on the BBC’s coverage of war and terrorism. He writes about how changes to news journalism are […]
Is drone journalism coming to the UK?
In November 2011, Polish firm RoboKopter filmed striking images of a political demonstration in Warsaw using a video camera attached to a drone or unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The New York Times heralded the footage as signalling the arrival of ‘drone journalism’. Since then, we haven’t seen many newsgathering drones in UK skies, but we might […]
British Army investigating ‘racist’ tweet to Lily Allen
A Twitter user claiming to be serving in the British Army has sent an allegedly racist tweet to Lily Allen. Earlier today, Harry Wilson sent the following message to the singer (@lilyrosecooper) who has 3.5 million followers: Allen subsequently complained to the British Army indicating that Wilson should be "disciplined". Wilson initially retweeted reaction […]
Reporting Somalia: Expanding the scope of the media’s eye?
When you think of Somalia, what comes to mind? Conflict? Pirates? Refugees? Poverty? Somalia is still a dangerous place for journalists to operate: according to the Committee to Protect Journalists five journalists have been killed there this year. But improvements in the security situation are offering new opportunities to access stories that may have been too risky to […]
An ocean of data and the future of social media analysis
Data is the future, if it’s not already the present. At a recent press conference announcing US military investment in ‘Big Data’ projects, the acting director for DARPA noted that the Atlantic Ocean contains 100 billion, billion gallons of water. Kaigham Gabriel went on to state that "if each gallon of water represented a byte […]
Behind the scenes: social media at the Israel Defence Forces
This is an extended news report on the Israel Defence Forces’ social media activities including interviews with the soldiers updating the various IDFSpokesperson accounts. The video is a year old, but I’ve been looking for this sort of material for a while. The IDF started with a blog and a YouTube channel in 2008 during Operation Cast […]
Social media from the front line
Major Paul Smyth is one of the people responsible for changing the Ministry of Defence’s approach to social media particularly in the context of front line operations. I’ve spoken to him previously for the Frontline Club about his Frontline bloggers project. In this interview with David Bailey, Maj. Smyth talks in some detail about how […]
Five links from 2011: ‘Twitter’
I am picking out a few of the more interesting links from my 2011 delicious bookmarks. On Monday, I selected five from my ‘war reporting’ tag. Today, I’ve selected another five from among the bookmarks I labelled ‘Twitter’ in my delicious account. Enjoy! 1. ‘Visualising the New Arab Mind‘ Computational historian Kovas Boguta visualises the Twitter influence […]
Twitter memorial for members of the Canadian Forces
The Ottawa Citizen has started a memorial Twitter account for members of the Canadian Forces who have lost their lives in conflict. The account will tweet the name of one service member at 11 minutes past every hour. The name is chosen at random by a computer from a list of more than 119,000 Canadians killed […]
Notes on ‘Libya and the Arab Spring’ at the Media Society
So yesterday I tried to fit too many things at too many different places into one day and ended up being late for the Media Society event on reporting Libya and the ‘Arab Spring’. But here are a few incomplete notes on the panel discussion… 1. BBC vs Sky News reporting of Tripoli I think […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Egypt’s digital revolutionaries: It’s not about the technology
The special joint event organised by the Frontline Club and the BBC Arabic Service brought together some of the key players, journalists and experts to discuss what has taken place in Egypt over the last few months. The first half of the evening at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, considered the role of technology […]