‘Reflections’ at the Frontline Club brings well known journalists to the stage to look back on their careers. Incorporating video clips, still images and articles selected by them, the host Vin Ray describes it as “a cross between Desert Island Discs and This is your Life”.  It is held in association with the BBC Academy College of Journalism.

On 29th May Alex Thomson, chief correspondant for Channel 4 News and the recent winner of the prestigious RTS Television Journalist of the Year joined Vin Ray.

Alex Thomson with Vin Ray. Photo credit: Caroline Schmitt

The first to be shown were two black and white still images showing the famous albino boy in Biafra by Don McCullin and Eddie Adam’s man being shot in Vietnam, the Saigon Execution.

“There is something peculiarly arresting about these photos; something that makes you stop and look about a photograph, different from television. I can visualise still images from Syria more easily than some of the moving images.”

When asked about what safety measures the Channel 4 News team take in conflict zones, Thomson shared an anecdote about one of his early experiences:

“When we started doing the Croatian War, we had a white diesel W2 Golf and wrote TV on it with black gaffa tape because that’s what they do in war movies. . . We just didn’t know what we were doing.”

When Ray asked what draws the correspondent to conflict zones, he stated:

“I do it because I like doing it. I do it because I don’t want to stand outside the House of Commons or in the City. That would drive me into a very early state of unhappiness.”

Thomson then read to the packed audience the report ‘Massacre in Sanctuary’ about the Qana Massacre in southern Lebanon. Written by Robert Fisk, Middle East Correspondent for The Independent in April 1996,  according to Thomson it was an example of “first-class, unencumbered and passionate eye-witness reporting.”:

“When you just look at that, when you take that apart as a piece of writing, there’s so much going on, there’s so much conveyed. . . . I just think that something like that just stands and there will always be a place – online or in the newspaper – there will always be a place for that kind of writing – direct, passionate reportage.”

Another issue raised by Thomson was the underreported issue of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) amongst soldiers operating remote drones in the US, which he elaborated on after presenting the infamous helicopter gunship footage leaked to WikiLeaks:

“They [USAF drone operators in Nevada] do a shift, they operate a drone and go back to see the assessment, so they see what the drone has done. They see the people  and the bits of people lying there . . . and switch off their computers. . . . Half an hour later they are in the shopping mall with their kids. That’s incredibly difficult for a human brain to link up. . . . Post-traumatic stress isn’t just found on the battlefield, it’s found on the virtual, real battlefield amongst drone operators as well.”

He finished with his well known foot-in-the-door interview with Kelvin MacKenzie, former editor of The Sun, to inquire about the newspapers infamous editorial take on the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster:

“Nasty. Vindictive. Pointless. Unpleasant. Personal. Tawdry. Cheap…theatrical. It’s all of that. Every time I see it, I feel more sorry for him actually. . . I started laughing, that was the problem . . . I couldn’t believe the way he mishandled it.”

Watch the full video or listen to the podcast below:

https://soundcloud.com/frontlineclub/reflections-with-alex-thomson

Newly crowned RTS Television Journalist of the Year, Alex Thomson was described as “without question one of the UK’s leading correspondents”. As chief correspondent at Channel 4 News his range of work from the Syria crisis, to door stepping Kelvin Mackenzie about the Hillsborough disaster has won him wide acclaim.

He will be joining Vin Ray in conversation to reflect on a career that has seen him spend 22 years at the Channel 4 News covering 20 wars across the Gulf, the Balkans, Africa and Afghanistan, as well as presenting the programme.

Described by host Vin Ray as a cross between Desert Island Discs and This Is Your Life, Reflections brings journalists to the stage to reflect on the stories that have impacted them most throughout their career and the journalists whose work has inspired them.

In association with:

In association with BBC College of Journalism

Governments and security forces are becoming increasingly wise to the role of social media in organising and enhancing protest movements. As a result they are developing new ways to block, hack and track citizens tweets, Facebook and other social media tools in order to prevent unrest.

Protesters and citizen journalists the world over are able to stay one step ahead, however with the help of Open Source developed phone apps that allow them to communicate effectively without being tracked as easily. From letting friends know if you’ve been arrested to getting your story public, there is an app for all possible situations.

ObscuraCam, a collaborative project between Witness and technology-focused activists, has developed a camera app for Android phones. It allows the user to share video and images without it being tracked back to them through data embedded into the file, whilst detecting and obscuring faces. Protestors can now safely share information without fear of identification.

But will apps really protect protesters, and are they any safer than traditional social media? What do mobile apps mean for citizen journalism? Join us at the Frontline Club for a lively debate about the latest technology for protesters and citizen journalists and how far technology could go in making protest safer and smarter.

Chaired by Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC’s technology correspondent and author of the blog, dot.rory. (@BBCRoryCJ)

With:

Christian Payne, mobile media maker and professional blogger. He champions story making with mobile devices and explores new social media and its applications. He can also be found speaking internationally on technology and lecturing MA journalism students at Goldsmiths. (@documentally)

Sam Carlisle, entrepreneur, hacker and developer of the Sukey mobile app that crowdsources information during demonstrations onto a map, allowing protestors to stay safe and one step ahead.(@samthetechie)

Tom Barfield, site editor and community manager at Demotix, the crowdsourced photojournalism wire. He’s a linguist, sci-fi and technology lover and something of a news junkie. (@tombarfield)

Ryan Schlief, programe manager at Witness. An international nonprofit organisation that uses video and storytelling to inform the world of human rights abuses. They are also one half of the Obscuracam collaboration. (@witnessryan)

Image Credit: The Guardian Project

A packed house at The Frontline Club heard Matt Frei regale them with tales from his long and illustrious career. The former BBC Washington correspondent, recently poached by Channel 4 News, was on fine form as he spoke to former BBC executive Vin Ray about more than 20 years with the BBC:

“The BBC is mother, and it’s been a very good mother to me, but now and again it’s a good idea to leave mother and elope with a mistress. I’ve always admired Channel 4 because it’s a cross between current affairs and news. Newsnight with a bit more of a newsy edge at a decent hour. I’ve had my eye on it for some time, and I guess they may have had their eye on me for some time.”

The event was delivered in conjunction with the BBC College of Journalism, as part of the ongoing Reflections series in which journalists including Alex Crawford, Jon Snow, Bill Neely and Martin Bell have discussed their experiences as journalists.

Frei spoke of the time he met Bell in Serbia, during the Bosnian war, and the valuable lessons that he took from him:

“He taught me the craft of television. It’s a very strange craft because it’s more about what you deny yourself than anything else, he said: ‘If you can’t say it in one minute and 42 seconds you can’t say it. Don’t bother.’”

Delivering his reflections alongside a series of memorable video clips, he discussed some of the high and low points of his career, including his coverage of the fall of the Berlin wall:

“I was told by a famous American journalist that this was the best story I would cover, and that it was all downhill from here. He was sort of right – it was such a happy event.”

He also spoke of some less orthodox approaches to stories, including one particular experience during his time in Rome:

“Giorgio Armani was accused of bribing the financial police. I got an interview by saying I was a fashion journalist for the BBC – I said I wanted to talk about hemlines and colours. Halfway through the interview he turned to me and said, ‘You know **** all about fashion, don’t you?’ I said, ‘Did you pay the money?’ He said, ‘Yes, in brown paper bags.’”

With regard to the challenges facing the next generation of young journalists Frei expressed some optimism:

“I think the challenges are going to be the same: find a story, tell it well and make sure somebody is going to pay you for it. If you’re starting out now you have an incredible range of tools at your disposal – much better than the tools we had, and cheaper.”

The issue of social media was subsequently raised, and the question of what it meant for the future of sending journalists like him around the world – particularly in light of the numerous journalists who have recently been killed and injured whilst reporting from warzones:

“I don’t think most serious organisations are thinking social media will replace what they have. It’s just another source of information – if you can’t get into Syria but you have evidence on your mobile phone you’re going to use it.”

As the evening drew to a close he discussed his only regret, the fact that he had to cover the Iraq war from Washington:

“I never went to Iraq, and in some ways I wish I’d covered it. In some ways talking about it from Washington makes you a bit of a fraud: unless you’ve seen the impact of policy on the ground you can’t really talk about it.”

 Watch the full event:

Video streaming by Ustream

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In association with BBC College of Journalism

From the fall of the Berlin Wall to the handover of Hong Kong to China, Matt Frei has spent over two decades reporting across the globe.

Newly-appointed to Channel 4 News as Washington correspondent, Matt Frei, will be in conversation with former BBC executive Vin Ray to look back over nearly two decades at the BBC before his move was announced in May last year.

The author of Only in America,Frei has covered numerous high profile stories and reported from Asia, Europe, America and Africa. He has been awarded, amongst others, the Prix Bayeux award for War Reporting for his coverage of the conflict in East Timor. He presented the BBC World News America broadcast and a weekly Radio 4 show, Americana.

Image Credit: Channel 4 News

By Helena Williams

Last year was the year of the freelance foreign correspondent. The tumultuous events of 2011 gave freelance journalists unprecedented access to breathless, breaking news stories in the Arab world – unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, where embedding restrictions applied, freelancers were free to travel and compete on the frontline.

With the increasing attraction of becoming a foreign correspondent, last night’s Frontline Club event brought together four freelancers working in ‘Arab Spring’ countries in a workshop for budding international reporters.

Chaired by BBC Radio 4’s Paddy O’Connell, the panel consisted of Tom Finn, a journalist based in Sana’a, Yemen; Portia Walker, who covered Yemen and the war in Libya; James Longman, who worked with rebels in Syria; and Ruth Sherlock, who has spent last year chasing the Arab Spring.

PREPARATION

Body armour, Hostile Environment training and sufficient funds aside, there is little room for techno-phobes when it comes to freelancing. The long list of ‘killer’ equipment for a freelance journalist includes a smartphone, adapters, satellite equipment and a computer with a camera – as video is quickly becoming as important as writing.

“There are two really useful things a journalist can have – a Kindle, because you’ll get bored, and a converter which plugs into a cigarette lighter in a car, so you can charge anything,” adds Walker.

She, like many journalists, found the hard way that if batteries run out copy can’t be filed on time.

Being web-savvy is also essential. A thorough knowledge of software like BGAN and Tor can save time and lives, but common sense is also key. 

“In Syria, one of the main reasons you are captured is to get information on people you’re working with. Keep your passwords safe,” Sherlock advised.

THE STORY

Finding an original angle can be difficult with other journalists around.

“Go to places that aren’t the biggest news story, because all the freelancers will be there. When news breaks where you are – which it will – it will force you to think of more creative ways to getting a Western reader to read,” said Finn.

“Make yourself the go-to person. Before you go to a place it’s about making the right contacts,” added Longman. 

Having the right contacts – usually, relying heavily on the local population and not being afraid to liaise with fellow journalists and fixers – is key to becoming a successful correspondent, as well as knowing the country you are working in.

“If the story is really big and you are at the beginning of the game, bigger names can help. But keep your independence. I got the edge as a freelancer by being with the local community. Don’t underestimate the kindness of locals on the ground,” Sherlock said. 

 “You have the duty as a journalist to learn the language of the country you are living in,” added Finn. 

PITCHING

According to Finn, pitching should be short and to the point.

“Get them excited, and keep it simple.  An editor of the Guardian once told me, ‘let your tweets breathe’. Remember, you have a limited space to say things,” he said. 

WHAT NEXT

“Don’t start with ‘I’m going to be a foreign correspondent.’ Start with ‘this country is interesting’. Have a point of view, and have a niche,” said Finn.

The freelancers agreed that anybody can buy equipment, but few are passionate enough to see it to the end. The glamorous ideal of being a foreign correspondent parachuted in and out of warzones is dead – instead, journalists have to be prepared to be in it for the long haul and push past setback after setback.

“You’ve got to know your story inside out. Develop a real passion about a place. Overcome your shyness, and just go for it,” added Walker

This event is now fully booked but you will be able to watch it live here and follow the discussion on #fcfreelance.

With uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa setting a relentless pace in this year’s news agenda, media outlets have frequently turned to freelances to cover events in countries where they are without staff bureaus and wire services.

The Frontline Club, in association with the BBC College of Journalism,  will be bringing together a panel of freelancers who will discuss the practicalities of life as a freelance foreign correspondent from setting up in a country to finding and pitching stories and dealing with the realities of conflict.

In contrast to the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, the recent fighting in Libya was not subjec to embedding restrictions and freelances were able to descend on the country and compete to get to the frontline.  Join us to discuss the issues working in a war zone raise for freelances.

Chaired by Paddy O’Connell of BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House.

With:

Tom Finn, a freelance journalist currently based in Sana’a, Yemen. He moved to Sana’a in August 2010 to work as an editor at the Yemen Times. He has been covering Yemen’s Arab uprising since January writing mainly for The Guardian but also for TIME, Foreign Policy Magazine, The Economist and Christian Science Monitor. In May his blog was selected by Foreign Policy Magazine as “recommended reading” for Barack Obama about the Persian Gulf. He is Al-Jazeera English’s correspondent in Yemen. He also blogs on Yemen for the Frontline Club.
Twitter: @TomFinn2

Portia Walker, a freelance journalist who spent the past year covering the Arab Spring. After three years working for Al Jazeera English in London, she moved to Yemen, where she was the stringer for the Economist, the Washington Post, and briefly the Daily and Sunday Telegraph. After being deported from Yemen in March while reporting on the increasingly violent crackdown on anti-government demonstrators, she went to Libya where she covered the war and its aftermath for the Washington Post, the Independent, USA Today and Foreign Policy, among others.
Twitter: @portia_walker

James Longman, freelance journalist working as an online producer between Sky News and CNBC. After having spent the past four or five years traveling, working and studying in the Middle East, he headed to Syria to spend time with opposition groups involved in the country’s uprising. Between June-July and September-October 2011, he spent time in hiding with groups in Zabadani, Homs, Rastan, Qabon, Madaya and Damascus where he wrote for the Times and the Telegraph and set up interviews for Sky News, NPR and PBS.
Twitter: @JamesReport

Ruth Sherlock, a freelance journalist who has spent the year chasing the Arab Spring. She moved to the Middle East in 2009, living and working in Israel and the West Bank. On 23 January she packed her bag for a three day trip to see the protests in Cairo, and didn’t come back for six months. Writing primarily for the Daily Telegraph she covered the Egyptian revolution, then the Libyan civil war, and now focuses on the escalating conflict in Syria. Other outlets include Foreign Policy, Sunday Times, The LA Times, The Scotsman, and Al Jazeera English (web).

Picture credit: Danfung Dennis

By Helena Williams

In a year where 100 journalists have been killed so far while trying to tell the story, and as the media’s coverage of events rocking the Middle East have been brought into sharp relief, it seems high time to examine the delicate relationship between ensuring the safety of journalists and being able to break the story first.

“Libya has been a very traumatic year for journalists, especially for freelance journalists. We lost three good friends,” said Inigo Gilmore, an award-winning freelance journalist who has worked in conflict zones across the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

“No one even imagined Libya would turn to this. How could we [journalists] predict what would happen on the frontline?”

Last night’s talk at The Frontline Club, ‘Reporting Conflict: Competition, pressure and risks’ highlighted the risks that journalists out in the field and news editors back in London face while attempting to break news to an increasingly demanding audience.

Chaired by former BBC executive Vin Ray, and with international editor for ITV news Bill Neely, head of international news at Sky News Sarah Whitehead, and BBC’s world news editor Jon Williams sitting on the panel alongside Gilmore, the debate focused on the difficulties of conflict reporting from opposing sides of the industry – both those commissioning journalists to go to the frontline, and the journalists themselves.

Neely, who has worked in numerous conflict zones, was adamant that the first and constant pressure of covering war did not come from newsrooms in London, but rather from the competitive nature of journalists who want to go and get the story.

The old pressures from the newsroom no longer exist, said Neely, who argued that journalists now travel to hotspots on a voluntary basis.

Journalists have to be savvy while out in the field – the rule is “don’t stay anywhere for longer than 20 minutes in a warzone,” he said –  but it is also up to the editors to monitor the situation.

“Over the past 10 years editors in London understand that it’s people on the ground who have to make the decision not to go those 100 metres up the road.”

Whitehead, whose Sky News teams were hailed for their remarkable coverage from Tripoli’s Green Square during the fighting in Libya in August this year, agreed:

“You’re not there and you have to make sure they [the journalists] can make the decision. This year has been one of the most extreme and dangerous that I’ve known.

“This year I have taken people off air who have been in the middle [of reporting]. One afternoon, when a team was watching a fire fight in Tripoli, snipers opened up behind them and I pulled them off air and asked what their exit route was.

“You have to be there to be the stops if they are taken over by the story.”

While the BBC and other news organisations were criticised for failing to get equally dramatic coverage of events unfolding in Libya, Whitehead insisted that a lot of her team’s reporting was down to luck.

“[Sky News] was at the right place at the right time, and in the right frame of mind. They didn’t know where they were going to end up. A lot of people made other decisions and it was the right decisions for them.”

Williams, who has also had his fair share of managing journalists in hostile environments, said: “Risk must outweigh return, but it is a very fine balance. It’s a difficult call to go forward, and it’s just as difficult to go back. If you have the balls to go back because you don’t think it’s safe I take my hat off to you.”

Neely added: “It’s risk and reward. You have to ask yourself, ‘is it really worth that extra shot?'”

“War reporting is a mixture of judgement and luck – but you can be unlucky. For those 100 journalists this year, for one reason or another, their luck ran out.”

 

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BBC Newsnight’s Economic Editor Paul Mason joined the BBC in 2001, making his first live appearance the day of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He covered the collapse of Lehman Brothers live from outside its New York HQ in September 2008. Since then he has “hardly stopped for breath”, reporting on the social and economic impact of the global meltdown from the mean streets of Gary, Indiana to the elite salons of Davos.

Paul Mason will be at the Frontline Club in conversation with Matthew Eltringham, editor of the BBC College of Journalism website and events to discuss a career which has seen him cover the corporate scandals at Enron and Worldcom and stories as diverse as Hurricane Katrina, gang violence on Merseyside, the social impact of mobile phones in Africa and the rise of Aymara nationalism in Bolivia. His groundbreaking reports on the rise of China as an economic power won him the Wincott Award in 2003.

The author of two books Live Working or Die Fighting, How the working class went global and Meltdown: The end of the age of greed, Paul Mason was one of the BBC’s first bloggers and has twice been nominated for the Orwell Prize. 

The international editor for ITV News, Bill Neely delivered a fascinating masterclass in television journalism last night at the Frontline Club.

Part of a regular series of ‘Reflections’ events in association with the BBC College of Journalism, in which top journalists talk about their work and those who inspired them, the hour-and-half event was a mine of information and expert analysis on how to best make use of words, pictures and sound – and silence.

A must-watch for aspiring journalists and those who want to improve their game, the event includes insight into some of the key moments in TV journalism history since the 1980s, including the Bosnian war of 1992 to 1995. In the face of the atrocities carried out during that conflict, some journalists including the BBC correspondent Martin Bell and Ed Vulliamy decided that detachment was no longer possible and instead opted for the “journalism of attachment”, Neely explained.

He also analysed his colleague Penny Marshall’s use of words and pictures in a 1992 report from a Serb-run detention camp in Bosnia, which opens with Marshall saying ‘We were not prepared for what we saw there’. “Then for 18 seconds, she said nothing,” said Neely.

The report won the International News Award for 1992 at the Royal Television Society TV Journalism Awards but was caught up in a “storm” after Living Marxism magazine claimed that the video tapes were faked.

ITN successfully sued the magazine for libel but some people “still had not forgiven” BBC world affairs editor John Simpson’s decision to give evidence for the magazine, Neely said.

After showing one of his earlier reports from Newry while he was the BBC’s Northern Ireland correspondent, Neely examined the work of a number of journalists from ITV News, including Colin Baker and Paul Davis and the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen and Martin Bell.

Good journalists are able to use words to “grab a person by the lapels and never let them go,” said Neely,  who talked about the different approaches used by journalists, including Bell, who did not script his reports.

Drawing on a career that had seen him cover stories around the world from the fall of the Berlin wall to the Haiti earthquake and fighting in Libya, Neely also discussed the use of sound, pointing out the differences in the way  ITV News and the BBC reported from Dunblane massacre in March 1996.

Neely highlighted Baker’s report that showed school children leaving the primary school where 16 of their classmates and a teacher were shot dead. Ove the images, the former senior correspondent said: “Evil touched them, but just brushed past.”

During the report the sound of grieving parents could be heard from a building behind him but at no point did Baker draw attention to it, Neely said. “I think there are times when you just don’t need to,” he added.

The award-winning journalist, who picked up BAFTA’s three years in a row, contrasted different reporting styles from the BBC correspondent Kate Adie’s “icily detached” approach to the more conversational style of his colleague Tom Bradby, political editor of ITV News.

Neely talked the audience through step by step through his report from Haiti that won him his most recent BAFTA  last year. The report was shown in three parts and Neely highlighted different aspects of the package, which Ray pointed out broke with accepted wisdom of “using your best pictures first”.

Part two of the interview is here: