On Tuesday 1st November, in an event organised in partnership with the London Press Club and Index on Censorship, six journalists met at the Frontline Club to redefine Foreign Correspondence.

“Where once we were seen as neutral observers, now we are targets” said Caroline Lees, author of Index’s recent article ‘Under The Wires’. Backed up by a deterioration in journalistic safety and evidence supplied by Assad defectors, it is clear that journalists are now firmly in the military’s crosshairs.

Freelance photojournalist Paul Conroy attributed this to the rise of the use of truth “as a weapon of war”. Kim Sengupta, Defence Correspondent at The Independent noted that the use of kidnapping and public beheading by rebel groups has led to “a huge tranche of Northern Syria not being covered”.

However, this tactic of limiting press freedom through violence is not limited to terrorist organisations.

Conroy is in a court case against the Assad regime after documents smuggled out of Syria proved that he and his colleague Marie Colvin were a victim of an assassination operation. These documents state that “international journalists were to be treated the same as combatants”.

The rise of untrained freelance journalists in the field worsens the problem. Freelancer Samira Shackle mentioned that she had come across numerous “horror stories” of young journalists arriving in hostile zones without even basic precautions. She cited the dangers of young reporters travelling without insurance or basic cyber security.

The problem is exacerbated by the increased role of ‘fixers’. As local employees who offer on the ground support to the international press, these freelancers run many of the same risks as Western journalists but with little of the support. They also must cope with increased hostilities and accusations of being a spy or traitor.

They are also often left out in the cold when it comes to kidnap or imprisonment.

Caroline Lees mentioned the case of Jovo Martinović, the Montenegrin investigative journalist arrested whilst researching a gun running story. Despite the dubious charges, the French station he was working for has done little to help him.

Dr Haider Al Safi formerly of The Independent, said that in many cases, these employees were being exploited: “They are overworked, not getting paid well and also not introduced to their rights”.

There was consensus on how the journalistic world could respond. This included major organisations taking more care in training all it’s employees. Some attempts have been made towards this end.

However, Lees mentioned sources from news organisations who said they didn’t support fixers because it was “too complicated, too expensive and they don’t want to accept liability”. With statements like this it is clear a sea change across journalism is a long way off.

On February 19 at the Frontline Club, a panel chaired by international editor at Channel 4 News Lindsey Hilsum, discussed the current state of rebel fractions and the rise of ISIS in Syria.

Kim Sengupta, Lindsey Hilsum and Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi discuss Syria and ISIS at the Frontline Club

Hilsum started of by asking what happened to the FSA, which was so prominent during the first months of the Syrian rebellion?

Kim Sengupta, defence and diplomatic correspondent at The Independent said:

“There are more brigades, battalions that nominally at least will say that they belong to the FSA but as an organisation it is still very much based in Istanbul. It’s got probably more influence than before but not an awful lot on the ground.”

How did ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) rise to become one of the most prominent groups?

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi is a student at Brasenose College, Oxford University focusing on developments in Syria and Iraq:

“On the ground what happened was that Jabhat al-Nusra people accepted [leader of ISIS Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi’s argument [that al-Nusra was merely an extension of ISI and therefore should merge] and accordingly they switched over from Jabhat al-Nusra to declare themselves ISIS.”

Al-Tamimi explained the ideology of ISIS:

“Ultimately they [ISIS and al-Nusra] share the same ideological program. ISIS emphasises much more the goal of establishing a caliphate…Beginning in Iraq and Syria which then should not only encompass the entire Muslim world but the whole world, including London and such places… This globalist emphasis, which ISIS does, in contrast with al-Nusra, means that this appeals so much to foreign fighters.”

http://twitter.com/Alexwhi/status/436260104787484672

Raffaello Pantucci, senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI) said that many foreign fighters are unaware of the complicated environment they are going into:

“One of the things that isn’t so clear to individuals that seem to be going out there to fight is I think they miss the point about how confusing a battle field this really is and how shifting it really is. And how these allegiances on the ground are changing almost daily.

But why ISIS and not other groups?

Pantucci:

“…What’s worrying is that ISIS has a more globalist rhetoric… a lot of these people who are going out there are not going…because they want to become involved in terrorist activity and have any intention in coming back here to conduct some sort of terrorist attack… but what’s worrying is the groups they are joining and the people they will meet … may have different ideas and may be able to persuade them to have these different ideas.”

Lindsey Hilsum, Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi and Malik Al-Abdeh discuss ISIS and Syria at the Frontline Club

Malik Al-Abdeh, a British-Syrian freelance journalist based between London and Antakya, attempted to simplify the confusing environment:

“If you go to these places you realise that it’s all about money, it’s about local power brokers. How else do you explain why al-Nusra and ISIS don’t like each other? They’re two gangs that don’t get along.”

@Alexwhi: #Syria is like wild west, and extremist Islamist #ISIS group brings order to areas it controls, @malikalabdeh says @frontlineclub

— Hammad (@hammadsarfraz) February 19, 2014

A question from the audience asked what should the west and other powers be doing?

Al-Tamimi:

“It’s all just become so fragmented now…I think that either you accept the idea of wanting a total victory and then you’ve got to have some kind of international force brought in in the aftermath, to train some kind of army to bring some kind of stability and that will take a very very long time…a timescale of decades…or are you going to go with a de facto partition of the country and some kind of ceasefire?”

Sengupta said that it is actually too late for the west to intervene; the time has passed:

“If you don’t want to support a population against a regime, don’t entice them to rise up which is what Britain and France, in particular did… have been doing consistently and then they have failed abjectly to support what was left of the so-called secular groups and moderate groups and thus we have seen the triumph of ISIS and other extremist groups.”

Pantucci:

“I think that there was a moment where the west could actually do something to affect a difference, I think that moment has passed quite a long time ago and I don’t know if there is a huge amount that they could actually control about this situation anymore.

“…I think the one plan that they’ve got is how do we mitigate the threat that’s going to come back to us. And that’s why … the focus here is on the foreign fighters.. I don’t think there’s a plan for an end state of how we want it to look. I think they want to make it as less bad as possible.”

Watch and listen to the full discussion below:

https://soundcloud.com/frontlineclub/in-the-picture-journey-to-the

In late winter 2012, following in the footsteps of Eric Newby, French photographer Frédéric Lagrange journeyed to the foothills of the Hindu Kush, on assignment for Port Magazine. With minimal camera equipment, he made his way to the Wakhan Corridor – in the north-eastern Badakhshan Province of Afghanistan – a thin finger of land reaching eastwards to China, and dividing Tajikistan to the north and Pakistan to the south.

In this isolated and somewhat independent region – known by those who live there as the roof of the world – Lagrange spent a month living with and photographing the Wakhi people, whose lifestyle has changed little in hundreds of years.

Due to their remoteness they avoided much of the terror exercised upon the people of Afghanistan by the Taliban, but now there is a growing anxiety as to what the coming years may hold.  With the Nato withdrawal fast approaching, they are recalling the violence that took sway 25 years ago during the two-year Mujahideen presence following the Soviet retreat.

Lagrange will be joining us in a discussion chaired by the The Independent’s defence correspondent, Kim Sengupta and featuring Rory Stewart MP, whose 32-day solo walk across Afghanistan in early 2002 was the basis for his first book, The Places in Between. Lagrange will present his work and they will discuss the fears and concerns he heard from the Wakhi people about the upcoming Nato withdrawal and an uncertain future.

Stark facts and personal tales of attacks on the press took the centre stage at the Frontline Club on Wednesday 8th May, in a session chaired by BBC Global News director Peter Horrocks

Elizabeth Witchel from CPJ details the findings from their current report on press freedom. Photo: Alex Glynn

Heather Blake from Reporters Without Borders (RSF) outlined why her organisation thinks this is an important issue to campaign on:

“It affects all of us. The hallmark of democracy, of society, of freedom is in the freedom of speech and the freedom of press. And the press being attacked is always a sign there are other violations taking place.”

Defence and diplomatic correspondent at The Independent, Kim Sengupta, stated the immense importance of shedding light on what is happening “and it is essential they are protected to tell the truth.”

Getty Images picture editor Aidan Sullivan reminded the audience:

“If people aren’t being held accountable for killing and hurting journalists, we will eventually get to a point where sadly it is too dangerous to go and cover stories.”

He started the press freedom campaign A Day Without News? because, he explained: “I’ve just lost too many friends.”

Elizabeth Witchel of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) relayed the findings of their current report. She also reminded the audience of the human face to the statistics, drawing attention to a banner featuring the face of Saleem Shahzad, a Pakistani journalist who was found dead in a canal in 2011, showing signs of torture.

Blake shifted the conversation to the increasing role and repression of citizen and digital journalists (netizens) and talked about how RSF now records acts of impunity against these groups as well as traditional journalists:

“One of the stark changes in what RSF is calling ‘the changing character of reporting’ is the proliferation of citizen and netizen journalism. Due to this change, the impunity against digital community users is on the rise – they have become the new target of state and non-state actors.”

On this point Horrocks asked:

“Is there a danger that by extending the definition of those that RSF are concerned about, regimes will say you’re talking about people we would see as activists?”

An international humanitarian lawyer in the audience chipped into the debate:

“I think the conflicts of the last few years, including Syria, highlight that this is the role that these people will fill when the international media is excluded a large part of the time.”

Sengupta cautioned that this was a problematic point:

“I have great difficulties because I think as a journalist you try to subscribe to a certain ethos – we try to be objective. And citizen journalists are not. In Libya, guys who were writing on the web were then picking up the gun and going to fight.”

Sullivan agreed with Sengupta, warning that although netizens are not combatants, and they should be protected, it shouldn’t necessarily be as journalists:

“When we start to blur those lines, what we’re trying to do and what I’m trying to achieve becomes more difficult.”

Alex Glynn is a freelance journalist currently doing a Newspaper Journalism MA at City University.

You can watch the session or listen to the podcast below.

https://soundcloud.com/frontlineclub/attacks-on-the-press-stamping

Embedded journalism in Afghanistan is on the agenda at the Frontline Club this evening. Several journalists are on the panel including Caroline Wyatt, (BBC), Tim Marshall, (Sky News) and the Club’s founder Vaughan Smith.

While they’ll be discussing Afghanistan and embedding tonight, The Independent‘s Defence and Diplomatic Correspondent, Kim Sengupta, will be heading back to Afghanistan for the 25th time.

Yesterday he spoke about embedded journalism at the Global Media and ‘War on Terror’ Conference at Westminster University.

Sengupta said that when he travels to Afghanistan, most of his time is spent embedded with British forces. He has also joined up with U.S. forces.

He said that ideally a journalist would also spend some time unembedded but argued that a journalist "can’t just rock up to a place" in Helmand province in the middle of an insurgency. A number of Sengupta’s media colleagues have been kidnapped and held for ransom in Afghanistan.

There are other difficulties for the embedded reporter. Freedom of movement is obviously limited, and there is a "fine line" between what a journalist can and can’t report.

Sengupta said that he would put up an argument if he felt the military was not allowing him to report something which did not breach operational security. But he admitted that there is a tendency to identify with the unit and subconsciously self-censor; a journalist relies on the military unit for support and shares in the experiences of the soldiers.

He acknowledged that he is never entirely sure which side is telling the truth, suggesting that NATO pronouncements are not challenged in a sophisticated manner by the insurgents and that stories in the Afghan news media are often based on unverifiable rumours.

The view of Afghanistan that Sengupta can access and, hence, the one he can offer his audience, is consequently limited: "All you can do is give a snapshot".

Frontline Club founding member Tira Shubart sees her new BBC TV comedy series, Taking the flak, start next week. The series takes a wry look at the world of foreign correspondents reporting a fictitious African war and was originally entitled "The Calais Rules"… read on if these rules are new to you. In what might be a bit of a club-in, fellow club regular Kim Sengupta chimes in with a preview in The Independent today. Taking the flak is a comedy but, we are promised, will also hint at some of the realities of foreign newsgathering,

What does not ring true is just how few people the BBC supposedly had in Karibu. In most conflict situations the Beebs’s contingent, visas permitting, is vast. It’s amusing to see the fun and games when the "big beasts" arrive. In the brief Georgian war last summer, hacks discussing details of the day’s fighting would inevitably end with "Oh, and four others flew in from the BBC". Recently, to cover an event in Iraq the Beeb had a team of 17, while the other TV stations had three or four. It is common, in situations like that, to hear cash-strapped rival broadcasters mutter under their breath as yet another BBC reporter interviews a BBC reporter. The BBC does, of course, as they tend to point out to you, have a lot of outlets to service. link