Iraq
$1 million Baghdad security budget
Peter Morello of University of Missouri-Kansas City (UKMC), Matthew Schofield of The Kansas City Star and activist Mike Murphy held a roundtable at UKMC to discuss the war in Iraq and the nature of reporting conflict, issues around embedding and the sheer expense of it all, “It’s become expensive to have reporters in different countries,” […]
Journalist Diyar Abbas gunned down in Kirkuk
Diyar Abbas Ahmed, a journalist with Eye Media in Iraq, was reportedly gunned down in the northern city of Kirkuk on a day of attacks across the country killing at least 19 people, The worst single attack was in Baghdad’s mainly Sunni quarter of Dora where a car bomb blast at a crowded market killed […]
Threat to Iraqi journalists
Magda Abu-Fadil writes on The Huffington Post about the Iraqi journalist hotline set up recently after the killing of four staff from the Al-Sharqiya TV station in September, 2008, A ministry spokesman said hotlines would be established between various police departments, government agencies, intelligence services, swat teams and journalists to enable the ministry to protect […]
The business of death
Hugh Sykes writes on the BBC website about the dangers for Iraqi journalists trying to report on the ongoing war. Almost 300 media workers have been killed in Iraq since 2003. Most of the dead are Iraqi, The editor of the Baghdad daily paper al Sabaah, Falah al Mashal, told me: “Journalism all over the […]
Muaid al-Lami wounded in Baghdad bomb
Muaid al-Lami, head of Iraq’s national journalists’ union, was among six people wounded in a bomb blast outside the union offices in central Baghdad today according to Reuters, “Some vehicles outside caught fire and it shattered all the glass in the building,” union member Hassan al-Aboudi, who was in the building at the time, told […]
Jamie Tarabay on the frontline
NPR reporter Jamie Tarabay talks about being stationed in Baghdad for two years and on her upcoming project about Muslim culture in the United States, What was it like being stationed in these high-conflict areas? It’s hairy. You do sort of have to remind yourself to a certain degree of the danger. You catch yourself […]
Live tonight: Lord Malloch-Brown – An unlikely diplomat
[video:bliptv:1278256] Lord Malloch-Brown, UK Minister for Africa, Asia and the Middle East, will be in conversation with Richard Beeston, Foreign editor at The Times, at the Frontline Club tonight – Weds 17 Sept. It’s a sell out event, so if you haven’t got a ticket do please join us on the Frontline Club live channel […]
Hotline for Iraqi journalists
Iraq’s Journalistic Freedom Observatory has agreed with the Interior Ministry to create a hotline for journalists and to provide them with armed protection if needed. The move follows the killing of four Al-Sharqiya TV staff in Mosul last week, “Iraq is not only the most deadly country in the world for the press, it also […]
Censorship at work in Baghdad
Caesar Ahmad and Tina Susman write about censorship at work in Iraq for the LA Times Babylon and Beyond blog. The duo describe what happened when a bomb exploded on Sunday near the Baghdad bureau of the Los Angeles Times and the photographers headed to the scene, It was about a three-minute walk to the […]
Four Iraqi TV staff gunned down in Mosul
Reuters report that four staff from Iraq’s Sharqia TV station were kidnapped and then shot by gunmen in the northern city of Mosul today. “Today at noon, armed people kidnapped and killed four of our workers in the channel. They were doing their national duty recording an episode in Mosul,” the independent station said in […]
Defense Dept responsible for more OPSEC breaches than milblogs
Ari Melber has written an article for ‘The Nation’ about blogging regulations and the US Army. Not much new here, but some interesting analysis. I found this paragraph particularly enlightening for those that are concerned about the threat from blogs to Operational Security (OPSEC): “Even when the web does expose problematic information about military operations, […]
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 […]
‘CPT G’ takes up position in Information Operations
Captain Matthew Gallagher, the milblogger behind Kaboom: A Soldier’s War Journal, has been moved away from his frontline duties. According to his fiancée, he’s been given a role in Information Operations at a Forward Operating Base in Iraq. In May, a blog post written by Captain Gallagher about his refusal to accept a role away […]
Al-Arabiya bureau chief escapes car bomb
AFP reports that Jawad Hattab, the Baghdad bureau chief for Al-Arabiya, narrowly escaped a car bomb today, “An explosive device was placed in the car of Al-Arabiya’s bureau chief Jawad Hattab near his home in the Al-Salihyah district of central Baghdad,” the Dubai-based satellite channel said. link Hattab and a number of Al-Arabiya colleagues have […]
Milbloggies 2008: Go vote for your favourite milblog
The 2008 Milblogging Awards have been open for a couple of days now. If you want to nominate a blog you’ll have to head on over to Milblogging.com before Wednesday. Voting will begin on Thursday. There are several categories: U.S. Air Force U.S. Army U.S. Marine Corps U.S. Military (Parent) U.S. Military (Spouse) U.S. Military […]
South Korea filmaker banned from Iraq
Kim Young-me, a South Korean filmaker has been banned from travelling outside South Korea by the South Korean government. She could also go to prison for violating a (slightly bizarre) year-old law banning Koreans from traveling to Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia, “They don’t want journalists working in Iraq,” she said… “I wanted my own independent […]
Reporter’s Notebook 4: Make sure you’re not left on the plane
[video:liveleak:61e_1219834360] British soldiers blow up a Hercules C130 transport plane. That’s an estimated £45 million pounds of aircraft biting the dust. In February 2007, the plane had been damaged on landing in Iraq. It was “deemed unrecoverable due to operational constraints” according to an MoD inquiry. More details at the Flight Blog.
Journalists detained in Iraq
The Wired Danger Room blog does a good job rounding up the number of journalists who have been detained by US forces in Iraq. In late August, for example, Ali al-Mashhadani — a freelance cameraman working for Reuters, the BBC, and NPR — was released by the U.S. military in after 26 days in detention. […]
Iraqi snapper Ibrahim Jassam arrested
Ibrahim Jassam, an Iraqi photographer working for Reuters, has been arrested by US forces south of Baghdad. He “posed a threat to security” an army officer told AFP by email. Reuters demand he is either charged or released, “We are concerned to hear about Jassam’s detention, and urge the US military to either charge or […]
Nicolas Henin nominated for Bayeux
[video:youtube:vP-mdIDezNc] Nicolas Henin, a French journalist specializing in conflict reporting, writes on his personal blog about his nomination for a Bayeux award for war correspondents for his report from Iraq int he video above, This is my second nomination at Bayeux. I was nominee for the first time in 2004, for a radio story I […]
Dexter Filkins on reporting from Iraq
Dexter Filkins talks to readers of the New York Times about working as a war correspondent in Iraq. It’s a lengthy Q&A, but it’s worth a look for his take on working in a war zone, Q: What would be your advice for young journalists who want to cover this conflict as you have done? […]
Reporting – a danger to Kurdish journalists
Reuters report on the dangers faced by Kurdish journalists working in the enclave in northern Iraq. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists about 60 Kurdish journalists “were killed, threatened, attacked, or taken to court in the first half of 2008” “In Kurdistan there is no freedom for journalists. I have proof of that — […]
Jill Carroll kidnapper arrested
The alleged mastermind behind the kidnapping in Baghdad of American journalist Jill Carroll in 2006 has been arrested, says Deborah Haynes in Baghdad for The Times today. Salim Abdallah Ashur al-Shujayri, also know as Abu Uthman was captured on August 11 and is also thought to have been involved in the kidnap and murder of […]
In the 21st century…
Two great clips via Mohamed Nanabhay, Head of New Media at the AlJazeera Network. All about Georgia, Iraq, politics, the west and ‘stuff’… say no more. Just go over and take a peek.
Spinning the war in Iraq?
“Back to Iraq” is a trip organised Vets for Freedom (VFF), an American pro-war group. A band of ex-servicemen with some journalism experience are heading “Back to Iraq” to areas in which they served to report on what they find. But is it journalism? Alex Koppelman on Salon.com has more, VFF leaders say they chose […]
Tourism not terrorism
Our man Kim Sengupta reports that the Iraqi government has come up with the winning slogan “tourism not terrorism” to try and attract visitors to the land of Babylon. Delegates from Basra have taken inspiration from the upsurge in tourism seen in Northern Ireland since the IRA ceasfire, Hamood al-Yakoubi, head of the Iraqi tourist […]
Muting the war
Fascinating reminder of the way American and western media report the wars in Iraq and Afghanstan on The Media Channel, Why do I think this image from Thursday’s NYT is so profound? It’s because the military has been so overwhelmingly effective in muting the war, and the war photographer, that — practically without notice — […]
Identity of ‘LT G’, former Kaboom milblogger, revealed
The man behind the popular military blog, Kaboom, is 25 year old Matthew Gallagher. His blog was shut down after he failed to allow a blog posting to be vetted by a superior. He was serving with the 25th Infantry Division’s 2nd Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment. His platoon was based in a small village north-west […]
Royal Navy advisor: Iraqi Navy not capable of protecting oil until end of 2010.
The Iraqi Navy will not be able to take full responsibility for counterinsurgency operations to guard Iraq’s oil infrastructure until the end of 2010 at the earliest, according to a Royal Navy advisor. Captain Paul Abrahams is the director of the maritime strategic transition team and the senior advisor to the Iraqi Navy. Speaking at […]
Editorial preferences
[video:youtube:L5XIhIpVUfI] Photo District News has more on the disembedding of photojournalist and blogger Zoriah Miller, “The official reason which they chose to use for disembedding me was that I had supplied the enemy with information on the effectiveness of attack,” he said. “I told the public affairs officer, listen, I really have to disagree with […]