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

Here’s freelance journalist Graham Holliday‘s presentation on working as a freelance. Graham, who is living in Rwanda where he runs Kigali Wire, a news wire, photojournalism site and blog, discusses freelancing in 2011 and his "five little secrets" about working abroad.

A panel of experts and a packed audience discussed this at last night’s event, which was chaired by author and broadcaster Tom Fenton and in association with the BBC College of Journalism. You can listen to the podcast here or download from itunes.

Video streaming by Ustream

Dina Matar, senior lecturer in Arab media and political communication at SOAS, said it would be difficult for state media to gain trust and credibility, particularly if they are associated with the old guard. It will take time before these questions can be answered and they will have to take place as part of wider institutional change, Matar said, adding that in countries like Tunisia and Egypt there have already been changes that were "sincere and quite deep":

In Egypt we have seen a change in the editors at some. of the state media, including Al-Ahram and we have seen a change in the language that is used by the old state media, which is now still under the same name but perhaps under a new editorship.

Other key problems that face the state media, and actually media in general in the Arab world, is the question of ethics, social responsibility, the question of what to write about, how to say things and I think there is a need for some form of regulation.

Faisal J. Abbas, who is a blogger for the Huffington Post, said "the simple answer is that there’s not going to be a future for Arab state-owned media":

I’m not with the notion that this is what many people are calling the social media revolution or a Facebook revolution, I don’t think it is. If you compare internet usage in the Arab world you find that 40 million Arabs used the internet last year, which is the equivalent of what Al Jazeera Arabic gets in one day. I think it’s a mixture of both.

 

But if competition doesn’t take out the state-owned media the dictators which use them will soon dismantle them because they’ve proven useless.

Hugh Miles, award-winning investigative journalist specialising in the Middle East and North Africa, said the media in the Arab world was struggling with the same "technical" problems as the media in the West, including the rapid advances in the internet, changes in the way media is consumed which mean the old news model no longer works:

They also have another problem, which is a crisis of credibility, they are completely discredited. For years they’ve been trailing in popularity stakes behind Al Jazeera and also other private commercial channels.

State media in Tunisia and Egypt needs a large overhaul, it needs to reinvent itself and has a very large hill to climb in order to become competitive again [in the satellite market]. To be competitive they need to have the same ingredients as Al Jazeera has, which is a backer with bottomless pockets, a political environment which will tolerate freedom of speech and they need to be able to compete to attract the best staff.

Ayman Mohyeldin, Middle East-based correspondent for Al Jazeera English, said he was not a fan of the "marketing gimmick" of calling it the "Facebook" or "Twitter revolution but subscribed to the notion that the revolutions were "fuelled by information" which allowed Arab citizens to overcome fear:

If it weren’t for the family of Mohammed Bouazizi, the fruit and vegetable seller who set himself on fire, if it weren’t for his family and friends who went  to the streetsand protested  that night and uploaded the video on the internet for other people in nearby villages to see, and if it weren’t for Al Jazeera thousands of miles away in their studios noticing and putting that image on and broadcasting it to the 40 million or 50 million people watching, other people in Tunisia would not have known that this happened. 

The reason why is because they would have been watching state media and we all know that state media would have painted rather a different picture of Tunisia.

While the banning of ITV journalists at a police press conference during the investigation into the murder reflects tensions between the police and the media, the News International phone hacking scandal raises questions about the working relationship between the police and the tabloid press in particular.

What impact is rolling news and the blanket coverage of some murder investigations having on our justice system? And what impact are social media having – not only in terms of increasing public scrutiny  of the police but also the recent decisions to allow journalists to use Twitter to report from the court room?

Join as at Frontline Club for a lively debate on these issues, and the partnership between the police and the media.

With:

Andrew Trotter OBE QPM, Chief Constable, British Transport Police and chair of ACPO Communications Advisory Group;

Additional panelists to be confirmed.

This event is in association with the BBC College of Journalism

Picture credit: Adrien Lebrun

By Will Spens

The recent demonstrations across the Arab world, unrest in Ireland, Greece and France and the student protests in Britain have highlighted what appears to be an unprecedented revolt against power structures around the world.

Chaired by Steve Crawshaw, author and international advocacy director for Amnesty International, the discussion focused on the role of social media in modern uprisings and how the mainstream media  is responding to the use of social media in facilitating and reporting people movements.

Turi Munthe, CEO of the citizen journalism newswire, Demotix discussed how social media tools were being used for rallying people, organising protests as well as for conveying news of events, adding that the audience for such information is generally supportive:

It is absolutely clear that there have been protests over time but the question is now: does social media have an impact? It may be a zero sum game [if both sides have the technology] or do these tools serve dislocated people power better?

We’ve learnt these things more and more. One of the reasons social media has been so driven is because the audience is mainly pro what’s going on. It’s a very particular demographic.

Jacky Rowland, an Al-jazeera English correspondent based in Paris agreed that social media was an important tool but added that in previous revolutions she had covered young people had always used tools that were available in creative and courageous ways:

Yes social media provide tools, but what we are looking at here is the sheer guts and determination of young people who use what they have at the time. When you have no information about what was happening, you couldn’t read the tweets – and so you get on the streets.

Guy Aitchison, co-editor of openDemocracy’s UK blog, OurKingdom and phD student in politics at University College London, who was involved in the occupation over student fees, said social media was a way of subverting corporate influence driving aspects of mainstream media and likened it to political activism going ‘open source’

Is the consumption of news being driven by certain corporate agendas? I’d like to see these agendas being challenged through social media. Twitter is a tool like any other tool. It undermines the monopoly over information and collective actions

Paul Mason, BBC Newsnight economics editor, when asked whether social media is changing the way people protest, rather than just being a tool, said:

It is technology and the communication revolution that has done this to protest. It breaks up some of the power structures that we used to think of. The point is this – if they [protestors, for example in Iran] can’t have revolution, they will create an area of control that exists with the power structure

As to how social media has influenced the coverage of media organisations, he came up with what might have been the most memorable quote of the evening:

If you give Frodo Baggins a mobile phone, the plot of Lord Of The Rings becomes a lot shorter – social media allows you get to the end of the story a lot quicker.

 

From regime change in Tunisia, persistent calls for President Mubarak to step down in Egypt, and protests in Jordan and Syria to student demonstrations in Britain and unrest in Ireland, Greece and France – we are witnessing unprecedented revolt against power structures around the world.

But are journalists equipped to understand the nature of these protests, what drives them and how they are organised?

What can we learn from recent protests about the likely nature of future protest, the role of social media and political allegiances? Are there any lessons to be learnt from the past that can help the media adapt to the new politics?

Join us at the Frontline Club for a fascinating discussion in association with the BBC College of Journalism.

Chaired by Steve Crawshaw, international advocacy director, Amnesty International and co-author of Small Acts of Resistance How courage, tenacity and ingenuity can change the world.

With:

Paul Mason, BBC Newsnight economics editor;

Guy Aitchison, co-editor of openDemocracy’s UK blog, OurKingdom, a PhD student in politics at UCL who was involved full-time in the occupation and a co-editor of Fightback: A reader on the winter of protest (a free downloadable e-book)

Turi Munthe, CEO of Demotix;

Jacky Rowland, Aljazeera English correspondent based in Paris.

In association with the BBC College of Journalism.

Picture credit: Adam Makery, Al Jazeera English

Throughout 2010 whistleblower website WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange were making headlines with the release of classified documents. Both the leaks and the controversy surrounding Assange have been covered extensively by the media.

For the first On the Media discussion of the year we are going to be putting the spotlight on the media and asking what the WikiLeaks operation and the media coverage of it tells us about the press.

How have journalists responded to this new kid on the block? The future will no doubt see the emergence of similar organisations, but what impact will this have on the culture of journalism? How will the media adapt and how will this currently uncomfortable relationship develop?

Chaired by Richard Gizbert, presenter of The Listening Post on Al Jazeera English.

David Aaronovitch, writer, broadcaster, commentator and regular columnist for The Times;

Mark Stephens, media lawyer with Finers Stephens Innocent and Julian Assange’s solicitor;

Ian Katz, deputy editor of the Guardian;

Gavin MacFayden, director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism.

In association with the BBC College of Journalism.

“Today, guidance is more vital than ever. At the extreme, it saves lives. It can mean the difference between insipid insight and getting things dead wrong,” said Mort Rosenblum, reading aloud from his new book Little Bunch of Madmen on international reporting last night. “Trial and error is no way to cover events that help shape the course of a planet.”

“In a changed world, we need new frames of reference,” continued Rosenblum who was flanked by Tom Fenton and Jon Swain, both experienced bureau hands like himself.

The book is in part a tribute to the ‘old gang’ members, but Rosenblum is also dedicated to ‘the new guard’:

Last night’s Frontline Club crowd was suitably full of young faces eager to pick up all they could from this seasoned correspondent who started his reporting career in 1965 and has run AP bureaus in the Congo, West Africa, Southeast Asia, Argentina and France. He was also editor of the International Herald Tribune in Paris.

First he had some good news: “It’s never been so easy,” said Rosenblum, before adding that “you just have to be willing to starve to death for a while.”

“It’s not a question of experience, it’s a question of getting it.” Rosenblum continued. Asked if it’s still possible to find work by simply going sonewhere and winging it, the general consensus was affirmative – although Jon Swain advised building a relationship with foreign editors beforehand.

“It’s all a question of your own hustle,” Rosenblum agreed.“Taking a few chances, but not dumb ones.”

The discussion turned to an article written by the Independent’s Patrick Cockburn on the failures of embedded frontline journalism.

Reporters, said Rosenblum, “need the ability to move around the battlefield and just do it”. However,  Swain argued, good reporters “can see through the bullshit”.

The panel was also asked if the agreed with Reuters editor-in-chief David Schlesinger’s recent claim that ‘We must be ready to lose some stories to avoid losing yet more lives.’

The answer was a resounding ‘no’: “The news game is a dangerous business,that’s something we should be prepared to take,” said Swain, who pointed out that in Cambodia, the casualties had been much higher:

“We lost 11 in one day,” he said, adding that the story was always considered more important, the risk an accepted fact.

Discussing the internet and social media, Fenton made the point that they give the impression that there is more news, when in fact there are fewer journalists in the field producing less high-quality journalism. “It’s good to have a news flash, but you’ve got to have boots on the ground,” he said.

Picking out the young faces in the crowd, Fenton said: “If I were your age, I’d go for it. There’ll be a need for you. There is a need for information. The basic craft is something we really can’t do without.”

“Handing in a story. That’s the fucking Pulitzer for me,” said Rosenblum to murmurs of agreement from the master craftsmen on both sides.

“A rare blend of great storytelling and pure wisdom, Little Bunch of Madmen: Elements of Global Reporting is the best thing yet written about the state of modern journalism by one of its few true living masters, and every reporter working today should go out and buy it and read it.”
— Jon Lee Anderson, staff writer, The New Yorker

Since 1965 Mort Rosenblum has covered war and peace on seven continents: civil strife, velvet revolution, climate chaos, and everything in between. As Associated Press special correspondent, he’s been shot at, locked up, lied to and shaken down. He ran AP bureaus in the Congo, West Africa, Southeast Asia, Argentina, and France. As editor of the International Herald Tribune in Paris, Rosenblum dispatched correspondents and decided what made news. Now, in vivid detail, he explains what he learned the hard way in this gem of a guide to global reporting.

“This is the manual I wish I’d had back in the 1960s when I was dropped into the Congolese mayhem, clueless, sleepless, and scared witless,” Rosenblum writes. “It’s also the primer I wish people backhome could have had at hand to understand what they were reading and watching.”

Rosenblum will be joining us to look back on the last forty years that form the lessons and stories of Little Bunch of Madmen.  He will be joined on stage by celebrated foreign correspondent Jon Swain, the discussion will be chaired by author and broadcaster Tom Fenton. If you are a young aspiring journalist this is an event and a book not to be missed.

This event is part of our monthly On the Media series, produced in association with the BBC College of Journalism.