Americas
Colombia’s Peace Deal: The End to the Americas’ Longest War?
After four years of negotiations, the Colombian government and the largest rebel group in the country have reached a deal to end more than 50 years of civil conflict, paving the way for an end to the longest running war in the Americas. The asymmetrical Colombian Conflict lasted 52 years, claimed over 220,000 lives and displaced more than five million people. Can Colombia become a symbol of hope in a world wracked with conflict? We will be joined by a panel of journalists and experts to discuss this historic peace agreement and what it means for the people of Colombia.
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” […]
Shooting the messengers in Mexico
Just over a week ago crime reporter Armando Rodriguez was shot dead in his driveway in the border town of Ciudad Juárez. Two other crime reporters have since received death threats including Jorge Luis Aguirre, the 51-year-old editor of the Juarez news Web site called La Polaka. Frontline blogger Deborah Bonello, in Mexico City, has […]
Amanpour hour to launch on CNNI in 2009
Foreign correspondent Christiane Amanpour is set to head up a new nightly programme, The Amanpour Hour, on the CNNI channel in the United States beginning in the summer of 2009, “Our thinking was we wanted a big, the biggest, name to hub our international prime time, and when it comes to global international superstars that […]
Behind the scenes on election night
This will be the last US election post… The Obama campaign used a whole bunch of social media sites to propel their man to the White House. One of the tools they used on election night itself was Flickr. The election night slideshow is an extraordinary view behind the scenes as Obama, his family and […]
From Chicago to the streets of Tehran
Ramin Mostaghim blogged the reaction on the streets of Tehran to the election of Barrack Obama to the presidency of the United States, Hassan Mosavi, a 47-year-old barber, said he’s been closely following the campaign for days, mostly watching the Voice of America satellite channel. This morning, he awoke to see images of jubilation as […]
US Election night continues
[video:youtube:lhT5pTYJKWo] If you’re still awake this side of the pond – and I am barely – there are more photos from the Frontline Club election night party and there’s a bit more video action taking in the first and second floors of the club down to the wee press room next to the member’s room. […]
CBC staff protest war reporter lay off
Staff at the Canadian TV channel CBC are up in arms at the laying off of 26 correspondents including reporting “icons” Patrick Brown and Don Murray, “These are journalists who in many ways defined foreign reporting at CBC in the past few decades,” says [a letter to network president Hubert Lacroix] “Some of us grew […]
$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,” […]
Richard Bourne on Lula of Brazil
Last night author Richard Bourne discussed his latest book, Lula of Brazil, at the Frontline Club. You can watch the discussion here. President Lula of Brazil has a life that reads like a film script. The child of a dysfunctional family, his early life was one of poverty and chaos. In the 1970s, at a […]
Walter Astrada wins International Photography Award
Argentinian photographer Walter Astrada has won the Single Image category of the BJP’s International Photography Award for the image above of highlighting femicide in Guatemala, ‘Most of the bodies I take pictures of was the same. Not in the case of Maira. She was not only shot but it was 16 shots. It’s a lot.’ […]
It’s split
[video:youtube:KTkqosRiyYo] Roy Greenslade points us to a FOX News election straw poll taken in what looks like your average American diner in Northeastern Pennsylvania. “It’s split,” says the journalist. Really?
Live tonight: Countdown to November 4
[video:bliptv:1320615] We’ll be discussing the US Election at the Frontline Club tonight. The event is fully booked, but as usual you’ll be able to watch the event on the Frontline Club live channel if you can’t make it to the club in person. Taking part will be; James Naughtie, presenter of the BBC Radio programme […]
How does Sarah Palin form her world view? Easy, she doesn’t
[video:youtube:wBttm2hOhhY] I’m not sure this blog can take another dose of Sarah Palin, but here goes. Click the above clip forward on the video above to the 3 minute mark to discover exactly how the Republican Vice Presidential candidate in one of the most important US elections ever forms her world view. If you can’t […]
Journalists in prison
Every year the Committee to Protect Journalists releases a list of journalists imprisoned around the world. Every year since 2001, the United States has featured on this list. Joel Simon blogs about this further on the CPJ Blog, The annual appearance of the United States on CPJ’s imprisoned list since 2001 corresponds precisely with a […]
Daniel Pearl jam session
FODfest, or Friends of Danny, is a concert tour to celebrate the life of Daniel Pearl, the WSJ journalist murdered in Pakistan in 2002. The first show takes place on what would have been Pearl’s 45th birthday on Friday, Oct. 10, at 7:30 p.m., at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington, reports the […]
Our next door neighbours are foreign countries
[video:youtube:nokTjEdaUGg] I didn’t want to post this here… but I have to. If there’s one thing that impacts the work of foreign correspondents and war reporters more than any other it is US foreign policy. Should the Republican party win the US election in November Sarah Palin will become Vice President. She got her first […]
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 […]
Alistair Cooke cut up and sold
Gruesome news from Philadelphia. Two former funeral directors have admitted to “selling cadavers to a ring that cut them up and sold the body parts to hospitals for implants”. Not only that, but one of the bodies was that of esteemed foreign correspondent and voice of Letter from America, Alistair Cooke. One of the bodies […]
Republican convention censorship?
As American eyes are focussed on the Democratic Convention, Art Hughes, of the Minnesota Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, points to a number of worrying incidents involving the seizure of cameras and video equipment in the run up to the Republican National Convention that begins on Monday, Just hours after arriving in […]
McCain vs. Obama
No, this blog is not getting political… I just ran across something on the Reuters blog about media coverage of the rival candidates for the US presidency. The post concentrates on the seeming disparity between the candidates regards their media coverage, specifically their respective US TV coverage and even the number of jokes made about […]
Is this the end of the FARC?
Bogotá based Frontline blogger Anastassia picks up the story of the recent escape of French/Colombian kidnap victim Ingrid Betancourt and 14 others, There are still political hostages being held by the Farc (including 27 policemen and 3 politicians). Some families fear that the guerrillas will carry out reprisals against their family members held in jungle […]
Michael Norton dies age 66
Michael Norton worked as the AP Haiti correspondent. He spent the best part of 20 years covering the Caribbean republic. He died in Caguas, Puerto Rico on Sunday after a long battle with cancer, Unlike many who covered Haiti from hotels, Norton lived like many Haitians – struggling through power cuts, water shortages, street violence […]
Who exactly were the detainees at Guantánamo?
That’s the question a small band of journalists at The Miami Herald set themselves the task of answering in what the newspaper calls “one of the most methodical and challenging reporting projects anyone has undertaken this year.” The story took over eight months and involved travel to eleven countries. The journalists found 66 former detainees […]
Anthony Loyd and Seamus Murphy in Mexico
Frontline Club regulars reporter Anthony Loyd and photographer Seamus Murphy put together an audio slideshow from Palomas, Mexico. Click the image above to watch and listen the report, or you can read the same story here, Palomas is no stranger to violent death. Straddling a main contraband route across the Mexican-US border, the settlement has […]
World War II through the eyes of a black soldier
The Cleveland Plain Dealer has a report about the experience of black soldiers during World War II. Among them were many of the 1 million black Americans who served during the war, including Frank James, 83, of Shaker Heights. The day after Pearl Harbor was attacked, James put a planned music career on hold, kissed […]
Risks to ethnic press in America
The San Francisco Chronicle highlights a Committee for the Protection of journalists report that states since 1976, 11 of the 13 journalists killed in the United States in apparent retaliation for their reporting worked for the ethnic press, “It’s exactly that kind of person who covers the local community in a grassroots level who is […]
“I would never do it again”
Filmmaker Mike Shiley says he’d never do it again. The filmmaker, who quit his job and faked an ABC press pass before infiltrating Iraq, won awards for his documentary Inside Iraq: The Untold Stories. This week he spoke at a screening and Q&A at Temple University in Philadelphia. During the event a number of attendees […]
His name is Rio
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, nov.07, originally uploaded by kaysha. Brazil-based foreign correspondent Bill Hinchberger talks to BrazilMax about his two decades as a correspondent in the South American country, I’ve long maintained that I’ll only believe that Brazil is serious about attacking corruption, impunity and the generalized disrespect like the Gerson Law (from the […]
Anastassia in Bogotá
The first of our new bloggers is up and running today. Anastasia Moloney is a British freelance journalist based in the Colombian capital, Bogotá. She’s a regular contributor to the Financial Times, a contributing editor for the Washington-based website World Politics Review and she has previously blogged for The Guardian’s Comment is free. She’ll be […]