Getting the story
Freelancing in Somalia
Bulgarian freelance journalist Elena Yoncheva has reported from many conflict zones for Bulgarian TV channels. She talks about her time in Somalia in The Standart newspaper today, Have you ever been under attack while on the move in Somalia? I was twice on the verge of being kidnapped. Once we were followed by a jeep […]
Japanese journalist tours Somalia
Given the utter chaos within Somalia, outright danger for journalists and the fact that freelancers Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan remain hostages some 9 months after they were kidnapped outside Mogadishu, I was somewhat surprised to learn about Kenji Goto. He’s a journalist working for the "Independent Press" It appears he hooked up with a […]
Peter Beaumont’s secret life of war
Peter Beaumont, Observer journalist who has reported from war zones for twenty years, talks about his experiences on the Guardian website with Tracy McVeigh today. The newspaper runs an excerpt from his latest book, The Secret Life Of War today. Peter will be at the Frontline Club on May 12 to talk more about his […]
Reporting from Gaza
Was it liberating to find themselves without the BBC working alongside? Was it a daunting resonsibility? link Just two of the questions Judith Townend at journalism.co.uk proposes to ask Al Jazeera journalists Sherine Tadros and Ayman Mohyeldin at 2pm GMT today. The reporters were the only English language reporters in Gaza during the Israeli attack […]
Not getting into Sri Lanka
Jeremy Page had a surprise wating for him upon arrival at Colombo’s Bandaranaike International airport in Sri Lanka. After multiple rejected visa applications to enter the country, The Times South Asia Correspondent decided to go the tried and trusted tourist visa route… A message flashed up on his screen: “DO NOT ALLOW TO ENTER THE […]
Reporting the Mexico border
Angela Kocherga talks to Poynter about the dangers of reporting from Mexico, particularly around the border cities of Juárez where drug crime and killing are rife, How difficult is it for you, as a journalist, to do your job in Mexico? I assume journalists feel constantly threatened as they cover stories about killings and crime. […]
Reporter
Reporter is a film about the work of New York Times foreign correspondent Nicholas Kristof. The film, produced by Ben Affleck, debuted at the Sundance Film Festival last week, “As journalism of all kinds becomes more desperate to make money, then there is a tendency to focus more on celebrity,” Kristof said in a telephone […]
Finbarr O’ Reilly discusses Congo LIVE
Reuters snapper Finbarr O’ Reilly will be discussing his experience in the Democratic Republic of Congo and what first took him to Africa live online today, Wednesday, Jan. 14. Finbarr will use the excellent mobile phone video broadcast tool Qik to broadcast live at 17.00 GMT / 1200 ET. You can follow Finbarr on Twitter […]
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 […]
The Gaza fixer
Raed Atharmneh works as a fixer in the Gaza strip. Al Jazeera put together a documentary about him in 2007. It’s a timely reminder of the work of fixers and journalists in Gaza at a time when many media outlets can’t even access Gaza to report on the war. You can watch part one above […]
The cost of reporting Zimbabwe
Fifty Billion Dollars, originally uploaded by ZeroOne. The Zimbabwe government has announced new restrictive measures for media workers working with foreign news organisations. It will cost up to US$4 000 to practice journalism in Zimbabwe for one year, according to a report in The Zimbabwe Times. Here is a list of the new fees announced […]
Peter ter Velde talks to the Taliban
Dutch journalist Peter ter Velde talked to Taliban fighters in the northern Uruzgan province of Afghanistan where “several hundred” Dutch soldiers are based, Peter ter Velde, a reporter of NOS public television, met the fighters close to Camp Holland, NATO’s main military base in Uruzgan. He spoke to the six Taliban just before a roadside […]
Michael Ware addicted to the story
Michael Ware, a reporter with CNN, talks to Greg Veis in Men’s Journal about the difficulties of reporting from Iraq, getting addicted to the story and life on the road. He wonders if he’ll ever be able to quit the war habit. It’s not a pretty picture, “I’m a war dog,” he says. “After seven […]
The burqa theory of reporting Afghanistan
Soraya Sarhadd Nelson, a reporter with NPR, found out the only way to get to a story about the judiciary in Afghanistan was to don a burqa and head into Kunar province. Even then, things didn’t go smoothly, “Put on your burqa and don’t speak English. They can’t know you are American or we’ll all […]
Clifford Derrick reporting Kenyan election violence
Video journalist Clifford Derrick talks to The Mail & Guardian about how he reported the election violence in Kenya that began on December 27, 2007, He decided to set up base in the slums to record the story. It was a distinctly dangerous choice. “On three occasions cops threatened me. One came up and said […]
Gregory Warner talks chicken
Gregory Warner headed to the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan to work on a story about smuggling. He hooks up with his Afghan fixer, the oddly named JD, and the smuggling story soon becomes a story about a chicken and an amulet. Head over to This American Life and listen to the first fifteen minute […]
Abdullah Farah Duguf wins FPA award for Somalia film
Abdullah Farah Duguf won the prestigious TV News Story of the Year at the Foreign Press Association Awards in London last night. Duguf’s colleagues at Channel 4, Ben de Pear and Nima Elbagir, were also there to pick up the award, De Pear said: “He sent back via DHL five or six tapes which were […]
Farnaz Fassihi on reporting and Iraq
Farnaz Fassihi, an Iranian-American journalist, author of Waiting for an Ordinary Day: The Unraveling of Life in Iraq and The Wall Street Journal‘s deputy bureau chief for the Middle East and Africa, talks to Sara Sarnaz on the Persian Mirror. Fasshi reported from Iraq from 2002 until 2006 and in the interview she talks about […]
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 […]
Craig Swan on cold nights in Helmand
Craig Swan talks about life working in Helmand province in Afghanistan. The former BBC foreign correspondent now lives in the Spey Valley in Scotland and still hankers for the life overseas, although he admits it isn’t all rosy, “As the producer in charge, it was my job to negotiate with the Ministry of Defence to […]
Live from the Baghdad embed
Eric Owles, a journalist embedded with US forces in Iraq, answers questions from readers on the New York Times Baghdad Bureau blog. The post is part of a series of embed posts on the NYTimes blog Q. Are you given special training ( Boot Camp for Journalists?) so that you’re qualified to be embedded with […]
Working in Kabul
Kitty Dimbleby describes the quite ridiculous reality of working as a foreign correspondent in Kabul. It makes you wonder just what the value of the old parachuted in foreign correspondent really is – and what great expense it costs – when they can’t even get to the people to get a story beyond visiting a […]
Jaime FlorCruz working the China beat
Jaime FlorCruz, CNN Beijing bureau chief, talks about life of a foreign correspondent in China in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. The 57 year old FlorCruz has been based in China for the past seven years, “It took time and effort to overcome professional and nationality-related barriers, to stare down political biases and racial stereotypes … […]
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 […]
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 […]
Addicted to danger
The Daily Mail publishes extracts from Ann Leslie’s Killing My Own Snakes this week. The veteran foreign correspondent talks about the addiction to danger she sees in other war correspondents and which she has experienced herself, To be a professional war correspondent means, in my view, that you have to be a certain type of […]
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 […]
Doing journalism in Lebanon
Menassat has the low down on the difficulties working in Hezbollah-controlled territory in Lebanon. Detentions and iterrogation of foreign journalists is on the rise. Haji Wafa of Hezbollah’s press office tries to explain, David Hury, a French journalist, was detained on August 12, taken to different locations and questioned for six hours about his professional […]
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? […]
Students uncover Daniel Pearl suspects
[video:youtube:9yKsHWZyijA] According to MSNBC a group of Georgetown University students led by a colleague of Daniel Pearl have managed to succeed where the FBI failed. They claim to have discovered the real identities of 15 of the 19 suspects in the killing of Daniel Pearl who are still at large. The relevant segment in the […]