Michael Yon

July 11, 2011

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 […]


April 23, 2010

Military bloggers turn on Michael Yon after comments about McChrystal

A while ago now I wrote about Michael Yon and the end of his embed with the British Army in Afghanistan. Well it seems the lightning has struck again – only this time much harder. Another Yon embed came to what he regarded as a premature end earlier in the month, but this time rather […]


March 3, 2010

Michael Yon to embed with the Gurkhas later in the year?

Independent journalist Michael Yon, whose vivid dispatches from Frontline military embeds have proved popular both in the United States and Britain, has said that a return to covering British forces in Afghanistan later in the year is a strong possibility. A few weeks ago, on his Facebook fan page (one of those new news sources […]


October 7, 2009

2 Rifles firefight in Afghanistan

Here’s a very short video of a recent firefight in Helmand province courtesy of Michael Yon’s recent embed with the British Army.     I seem to have slipped into videoblogging these days. I’ll write something soon…promise. Maybe you prefer the videos anyway. 


October 2, 2009

MoD apologises to Michael Yon for “misunderstanding”

Yesterday, I suggested there might be an unlikely rapprochement between Michael Yon and the British Ministry of Defence after the row over the end of the journalist’s embed with the British Army in Afghanistan. And that’s clearly what Nick Gurr, the MoD’s Director of Media and Communications, is trying to achieve with this post. Written […]


October 1, 2009

More on Michael Yon and British Media Operations

Apologies to those of you who are already in October but I’ve been on holiday and want to wrap a few things up from the back end of September. This is one of those things. So if you read about this last week there’s not much new here. But if you haven’t, hopefully it offers […]


September 1, 2009

Michael Yon to end Afghanistan embeds and go it alone

Independent war reporter Michael Yon has not so much burnt his military embed bridges as completely obliterated them. He claims that the Ministry of Defence has been trying to have him removed from the area of Regional Command (South) and from Thursday he will be reporting unilaterally from Helmand province. Yon was annoyed that his […]


August 26, 2009

Michael Yon: Ministry of Defence gave me “zero warning”

In an email I received overnight, Michael Yon claims the Ministry of Defence "cut off" his embed with the British Army in Afghanistan with "zero warning and no chance for me to prepare." As I highlighted yesterday, Yon had been embedded with 2 Rifles for the last five weeks. The MoD denied that Yon’s embed […]


August 25, 2009

The mystery of Michael Yon’s “cancelled” embed

So what’s going on with Michael Yon’s embed with the British Army in Afghanistan? Michael Yon is an independent journalist who has been spending some time with 2 Rifles in Helmand filing dispatches for his website. After writing a post entitled ‘Bad Medicine‘ – a description of a British operation in Sangin, (neatly summarised at […]


July 29, 2009

2 Rifles in Helmand

I tweeted about this a couple of days ago, but if you haven’t yet latched on to Michael Yon’s latest reports and photography from Afghanistan then you should do so now. And while we’re on the ‘blogging from Helmand theme’, this collection of British Commanders’ Diaries from Operation Panther’s Claw is also worth checking out.