South Ossetia

November 7, 2008

Scott Taylor on reporting from the Caucasus

Canadian war reporter Scott Taylor talks about getting into the Caucasus to report on the South Ossetian conflict. The editor of Canadian military magazine Esprit de Corps found the situation on the ground far from straightforward, Before setting out from Stavropol, I had been assured by the Russian authorities that we would have no problems […]


November 7, 2008

The other war in the Caucasus

I’ll second Mathew Collin’s sentiments about this BBC World Service report called the PR battle for the Caucasus. It’s a fascinating 23 minute listen, The South Ossetian conflict, which began in early August this year, not only sparked a military war between Russia and Georgia, but a propaganda battle. It even made the front-page of […]


October 20, 2008

Dutch journalist killed by cluster bomb

[video:youtube:B-epO3SDVYg] A Dutch government investigation has found that a Russian cluster bomb killed a television cameraman in Georgia in August, the Foreign Ministry said Monday. Russia denied using cluster munitions during its brief war with Georgia in August, but human rights groups say both sides unleashed the widely denounced weapons. link We previously linked to […]


October 2, 2008

BBC turned back by militia in South Ossetia

The BBC’s Rupert Wingfield-Hayes and the TV crew he was travelling with were turned back by armed militia men as they attempted to enter South Ossetia. Click the image above to watch the footage.


September 19, 2008

Arkady Babchenko on South Ossetia

Arkady Babchenko, military correspondent for the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta and author of One Soldier’s War, took some of the most graphic and memorable footage from the recent war in South Ossetia. He talked to the German publication Neuer Zürcher Zeitung about the assignment. Sign and Sight translate the interview which covers Arkady’s thoughts on […]


September 4, 2008

Marcus Bleadale in Georgia and beyond

Marcus Bleasdale is a bit of a regular in these parts and it seems the Oslo-based photojournalist has been busy of late. The above frame is taken from a recent commission in Georgia. Beyond all out war, Marcus has also visited Venezuala and the USA. There are some great pictures (as usual) in all these […]


September 4, 2008

Georgia in motion

Now that’s how to do a multimedia presentation and get inside the workings of a photojournalist on the road all through images and emails. A Georgian Diary by Thomas Dworzak for Magnum in Motion is excellent, The Russians invaded Georgia on August 8th, while George W. Bush was in Beijing attending the Olympics. Twenty days […]


September 2, 2008

Fund for relatives of journalists killed in South Ossetia

The response to the campaign for funds to help the relatives of two reporters killed in the recent conflict in South Ossetia has been impressive according to Journalism.co.uk. As we blogged at the time, Alexander Klimchuk and Giga Chikhladze were killed in the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali. Journalism.co.uk talks to Mark Pinder, a friend of […]


August 28, 2008

A look back at South Ossetia

Global Voices point us to Live Journal user photomans with photographs from Tskhinvali and a refugee camp in Vladikavkaz. They’re from mid-August, but have not been circulated throughout western media as far as I can tell. There are the, by now, familiar appeals from journalists who know no other way of contacting bloggers in the […]


August 20, 2008

Yuri Kozyrev in South Ossetia

TIME photographer Yuri Kozyrev rides with Russian troops through Georgia and the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali. Meanwhile, Leli Blagonravova, a Georgian photojournalist, who was in Gori when the Russians first attacked on August 8-9 delivers a personal account on France 24’s Observers site. The Frontline Club‘s very own Kim Sengupta reports on Georgian claims […]


August 20, 2008

Alexander Klimchuk laid to rest

[video:youtube:7-o8qgZY1MQ] Alexander Klimchuk was killed in Tskhinvali, the capital of the embattled region of South Ossetia nearly two weeks ago. Russian Today reports from his funeral in the video above. He was found dead in the streets of the South Ossetian capital along with another Georgian reporter, Grigol Chikhladze. Alexander headed up the photographic agency […]


August 19, 2008

Three killed, dozens injured and arrested

Reporters Without Borders catalogues the deaths and injuries to journalists in Georgia since the war began less than two weeks ago. Turkish cameraman Levent Öztürk working for the NTV station was severely injured in attack which he and his colleagues caught on video, “When I was hit, my eye went and I knew something bad […]


August 18, 2008

Crossing the frontline

[video:youtube:wmGl5FACJ2o] This dramatic footage purports to show journalists crossing the frontline in Georgia because… well, it doesn’t look as if there is anywhere else to go.


August 17, 2008

Michael Holmes on shooting journalists

CNN correspondent Michael Holmes reflects on a week in which an alarming number of journalists have been either killed, injured and/or targetted in Georgia. Michael wasn’t stuck in a car in Georgia like the Turkish reporters he empathises with, but he’s experienced a imilar situation in Iraq, On January 27, 2004, our two-car convoy was […]


August 16, 2008

Reporters under fire

[video:youtube:So07TMHRJ7E] CNN reports on the recent spate of journalist shootings and deaths in South Ossetia and Georgia.


August 16, 2008

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.


August 16, 2008

FOX news reporters shot at in Gori

[video:youtube:UQXUW_ks8ls] FOX News reporter Steve Harrigan says he and a group of journalists were shot at in the Georgian town of Gori by “irregular, undisciplined, angry” Georgian forces with pistols. However, this appears to have happened at the same location we previously posted and both EuroNews and The Guardian reported the incident saying the man […]


August 15, 2008

Impossible to verify 2,000 dead

From the BBC Editors blog Jon Williams, BBC World News Editor, offers an interesting perspective on how easy it is for big media to get access to powerful people who want a soapbox, but how difficult it is to verify basic facts, For the BBC to have access to someone so influential [as Georgian President […]


August 15, 2008

The PR tour of South Ossetia

[video:youtube:FGAUhEFvbfo] There’s something quite bizarre about watching a truck load of journalists being ferried around a warzone by the people who are in large part responsible for the destruction. What can we possibly learn from such tightly controlled tours? Just how do the journalists ferret through debris to find a meaningful story? Many of the […]


August 15, 2008

Arkady Babchenko in Georgia

Arkady Babchenko’s photographs of the war in Georgia and South Ossetia are more graphic than you’ll find in the British press. Arkady is an ex-Russian soldier turned author who served in Chechnya. He works as a journalist with Novaya Gazeta – the same newspaper that Anna Politkovskaya wrote for before she was murdered. We’ve featured […]


August 15, 2008

Cluster bombs killed Stan Storimans

Bombies, originally uploaded by myriadity. Human Rights Watch say the attack on Gori that killed at least eight civilians, including Dutch journalist Stan Storimans, and injured dozens involved the use of cluster bombs, “Cluster bombs are indiscriminate killers that most nations have agreed to outlaw,” said Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch. […]


August 14, 2008

Czech politician puts war reporting boots back on

Jaromír Å tětina is a Czech senator with the Green Party. At the outbreak of war in Georgia he made his excuses and headed to the border. This is a politician with a difference. An ex-war reporter who has covered conflict in Europe, Asia and Africa and the Caucasus. “I came here to seek the truth […]


August 14, 2008

Sean Smith in Georgia

Frontline Club regular and World Press photographer of the year Sean Smith is in Georgia for The Guardian. Here are the latest snaps.


August 14, 2008

Another Georgian journalist shot

Euronews captures what it is says is a Russian military official shooting a female Georgian journalist in the arm in or near the Georgian town of Gori. This appears to be a seperate incident from the one mentioned in the previous post where another female Georgian journalist was shot in the arm while broadcasting live […]


August 14, 2008

Footage of Georgian TV journalist fired upon during report

[video:youtube:-ETQpCsvrIY] A Georgian TV journalist is apparently fired upon by a Russian sniper and injured while delivering a piece to camera. Fortunately, she’s soon patched up and back on with the job. UPDATE: I see Reuters have now picked up on the video: A correspondent working for Georgian state television was injured in a shooting […]


August 14, 2008

Footage of Dutch cameraman killed in Gori

[video:youtube:B-epO3SDVYg] Disturbing footage of what appears to be the aftermath of an attack on the centre of the Georgian town of Gori. It’s difficult to ascertain the veracity of the footage, although this appears to be the attack that killed the Dutch cameraman Stan Storimans during the Russian bombardment of the town. An edit of […]


August 14, 2008

Footage of Turkish journalists under attack in Gori

[video:youtube:mp6hB5RvYoM] Footage has surfaced of NTV journalists coming under fire in Gori, the Georgian town 30km from South Ossetia. It aired on the Turkish NTV channel. I think it is from the attack first reported on Sunday, Russian NTV producer Peter Gassiyev was injured in an attack by unidentified forces outside Tskhinvali, the news Web […]


August 14, 2008

Tributes to Alexander Klimchuk

Tributes to Alexander Klimchuk, the photographer who owned Caucasus Press Images and was killed in the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali earlier this week, are pouring in to the Lightstalkers forum. Mark Pinder, a freelance photographer from North Shields, Tyne and Wear talked to Amateur Photographer about his memories of the Georgian snapper, “We first met […]


August 14, 2008

Temuri Kiguradze whereabouts unknown

22 year old war reporter Winston Featherly-Bean, who was shot in North Ossetia on Sunday, has been transfered to an intensive care unit in a Moscow hospital according to Anchorage Daily News, “We’ve learned that Winston was suddenly operated on again today,” [Winston’s brother, Peter Featherly-Bean] wrote in an e-mail to family and friends early […]


August 14, 2008

Getting the story out of South Ossetia

The Press Gazette does a good job of telling us how the British press got the story out of South Ossetia at the same time most of them were heavily focussed on what was going on in Beijing. Listed in among the ranks of foreign correspondents who were first on the scene are Frontline Club […]