Israel

January 13, 2009

Inside the Gaza tunnels

Two journalists, one living in Gaza and one living in Israel, work together to produce a report on the tunnels that link Egypt and Gaza, Zouheir Alnajjar, a Collective Journalism contributor who lives in Gaza, and Jaron Gilinsky, a CJ Contributor living in Israel, show us two inside perspectives on the war in Gaza. Their […]


January 12, 2009

Media should be abolished from reporting

I really do not know what to say about this guy… Why don’t we all just give up and go home? Joe the plumber/war correspondent/all round idiot says War is no place for journalists. You’ve got to admit, this is probably the first, the last and the only time you’ll ever hear a “war correspondent” […]


January 10, 2009

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. […]


January 9, 2009

Palestinian camerman Ihab Al-Wahidi killed in Gaza

Ihab Al-Wahidi, a Palestinian journalist based in Gaza, was reportedly killed on Thursday after two tank shells hit his apartment in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood south of Gaza City. Wahidi was employed by Palestine TV and has previously worked as Yasser Arrafat’s cameraman. His mother and wife were also killed in the attack.(UPDATE: The IFJ […]


January 9, 2009

Gaza media coverage – official sources and numbers

Journalists like using ‘official sources’ of information. The theory (take a look at Herbert Gans among others) is that (in a democracy) government spokespeople, the police, officials, press officers etc are more useful to a journalist than other sources. They have access to information, are able to find out data, know people that know people, […]


January 8, 2009

Gaza media coverage – war 2.0, social media and cyberwar

War 2.0 Adrian Monck assesses Israel’s online propaganda operation. He notes: “Back in January 2008, 26 IDF ‘combat cameramen’ held a fortnight long exercise with US military camera teams, and were “drilled in the use of wireless image transmission technology.” Which is interesting. You can’t help but think that the IDF must have had a […]


January 7, 2009

Joe the War Correspondent

Joe the Plumber, who shot to fame when he questioned President elect barrack Obama about his tax plans, is heading to Israel. Yes, Joe the plumber is embarking upon a new career as… a war correspondent with the conservative website pjtv.com. Don’t believe me, watch the video above and read on, Dubbed “Joe the Plumber” […]


January 7, 2009

Gaza media coverage – BBC and blogs

My research looks at how the BBC reports war and terrorism and specifically whether blogs make any difference to the way they do it. So here’s a rough ‘this-is-what-I’ve-found-first-time-round’ draft of how the BBC is using blogs to report from Gaza. Editors’ blog On the Editors’ blog, James Stephenson has written a post on Reporting […]


January 7, 2009

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 […]


January 6, 2009

Gaza media coverage – alternative voices and blogs

News channels rely on far too few Israeli sources and do not represent the diversity of opinion on the conflict in Gaza, according to Jeff who commented on yesterday’s post: “There seems to be clear inconsistencies regarding the voices from Israel that are often heard on news channels vis-a-vis those which await adequate attention. It […]


January 5, 2009

Gaza media coverage – the propaganda war

As Israel continues its incursion into the Gaza Strip in response to recent rocket attacks by Hamas, there has already been some interesting discussion about media coverage of the conflict. A few days ago one of my colleagues at King’s posted a piece about the increasing strategic importance of the media in conflict. Citing a […]


December 2, 2008

Amira Hass held for entering Gaza

Amira Hass, a reporter with Haaretz, was detained by the Sderot police last night for allegedly entering the Gaza Strip without a permit. She was stopped while returning from Gaza heading back to Israel, Chief Superintendent Shimon Nahmani, commander of the Sderot police station, said Hass had entered Gaza by sea three weeks ago. Hass […]


October 2, 2008

LIVE tonight: Abdul Bari Atwan – From the Refugee Camp to the Front Page

[video:bliptv:1322728] Ian Black, Middle Eastern editor for The Guardian, will be in conversation with Abdul Bari Atwan tonight – Thu 2nd October, 7.30pm UK time/10.30am PST. As usual, we will be broadcasting the event on the Frontline Club live channel, so if you can’t make it in person do please come and join us online. […]


August 30, 2008

Blogging from the Middle East

Jaron Gilinsky, a Jerusalem-based video journalist and editor Falafel TV, guests on Mark Glaser’s MediaShift blog this week. He discusses how blogs are helping humanize conflict in the Middle East, If you can find the good blogs, you will be exposed to a very real slice of Middle Eastern reality that wasn’t possible 10 years […]


August 21, 2008

Israeli investigation into the beating of Mohammed Omer

Mohammed Omer, winner of the 2008 Martha Gellhorn prize for journalism was beaten by Israeli security guards upon his return home to Gaza in June. We blogged about it at the time. Stuart Littlewood, author of Radio Free Palestine, writes in The People’s Voice that he has received an explanation “of sorts” for the treatment […]


August 14, 2008

Israeli soldiers off the hook over Fadel Shana killing

David Schlesinger talks about his disappointment in the report this week from Israel’s senior military lawyer stating that Israeli forces will not face legal action following the killing of Reuters man Fadel Shana, I’ve written before that a camera is not a weapon, that a journalist is not a combatant, that the pen and the […]


July 18, 2008

Eric Silver dies aged 73

Tim McGirk writes on the TIME blog about the funeral of freelancer Eric Silver, a 73 year old originally from Leeds, who made Jerusalem his home and died recently of pancreatic cancer, Eric turned down a job back in London as a foreign editorial writer to return to Jerusalem as a freelancer. It was a […]


July 7, 2008

Mohammed Omer chronicles his beating

Mohammed Omer, the Gaza-based Palestinian journalist who recently recieved the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, gives a full and frank account of the treatment he received at the hands of Israeli security officers upon his journey home to Gaza, As the beating, scratching and assaults continued, I was sure my body and face must […]


July 5, 2008

To show or not to show?

Writing on the The BBC Editor’s blog Craig Oliver describes the decision making process behind the broadcast of footage from a street in Jerusalem where a man went amok driving a bulldozer killing and injuring a number of people. After some discussion he decided not to show the moment of death on the Six O’Clock […]


June 30, 2008

Mohammed Omer beaten unconscious

The People’s Voice reports that Mohammed Omer, the Gaza-based journalist and winner of a BAFTA award, was allegedly beaten unconscious by Israeli troops on his way back home to Gaza, My dear friend and brother Mohammed Omer returned to his native Gaza Strip on Thursday… literally unconscious and unable to speak after being beaten and […]


February 27, 2008

Kevin Sites in Haifa

Kevin Sites latest HotZone report is up. This time the roving multimedia reporter, who spent a year covering conflicts around the world for Yahoo, is in Northern Israel reporting from Haifa where residents were on the receiving end of Hezbollah rockets in summer 2006. You can also watch a short interview with Sites about the […]


February 19, 2008

Israel – Palestine on Record: How the New York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East

When Israel was occupying much of southern Lebanon in 1984, I recall reporting, in a paragraph or two in a larger story, that I’d just been in a trashed Shi’ite village where, amongst other things, a car had been run over by an Israeli tank. That evening I received a checking query from New York. […]


Wednesday 23rd January, 2008

Insight with David Horovitz – editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post

David Horovitz, editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, talks about the Middle East and the Israeli media.


August 31, 2007

You too can be Hassan Nasrallah

That’s right, you too can be the leader of Hezbollah. The Lebanese group have entered the world of video gaming bringing the frontline to a living room near you. No surprises for guessing who the enemy is, The Lebanese armed group Hezbollah has launched a new computer game with Israel as the enemy. Special Force […]


March 1, 2007

Intifada: The Long Day of Rage (2)

In the foreword to this perceptive and timely book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, David Pratt notes that amid the hatred and bitterness it has generated over the decades, both warring communities cling resolutely to “their respective narratives of victimhood.” Put another way, each has its own version of the events that have locked them together […]


March 1, 2007

Intifada: The Long Day of Rage (1)

The first boy was shot at around three o’clock. He was carried past, trying to be brave but sobbing with the pain of his shattered elbow. The next was shot 15 minutes later. The third was shot about 45 minutes after that. By early evening I had counted six seriously injured teenagers loaded into the […]


September 4, 2006

Feet in both camps (1)

In the July war in Lebanon we could never see the danger coming from the Israeli warplanes or know when they might suddenly strike. It made for apprehension, moments of  terror and lots of black humour. There was the constant roar overhead day and night. Then there was the constant buzz of the drones. Like […]