"I showed it to my two young sons, 9 and 12, who both immediately felt sorry for Aisha and asked why anyone would have done such harm to her." [WARNING: Graphic image.] Richard Stengel, managing editor of Time magazine, on why he chose to run on the magazine's cover a photo of a young woman whose nose and ears had been cut off at the insistence of the Taliban. It accompanies the article "Afghan Women and the Return of the Taliban."
posted by ocherdraco on Jul 29, 2010 - 142 comments

"It is a scene from which many of us would naturally recoil, or at least avert our eyes: a grievously injured young man, fallen on a rough patch of earth; his open-mouthed and unseeing stare registering — who can know what? — horror or fear or shock; being tended desperately by two companions in what are the first moments of the final hours of his life."
The New York Times' Lens Blog explores the circumstances and consequences of the Associated Press releasing Julie Jacobsen's photo depicting Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard after he was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade in a Taliban ambush. [more inside]
posted by heeeraldo on Sep 4, 2009 - 131 comments

They call themselves Visual Journalists. Prime among them is the Bombay Flying Club, a group of photo-journalists who are using the latest web and flash technologies to frame their online news gathering and documentary storytelling. [more inside]
posted by netbros on Mar 1, 2009 - 19 comments

Don't Bomb Us. In response to credible reports that Bush wanted to bomb al-Jazeera's HQ in allied Qatar (discussed here and here on MeFi), Al Jazeera staffers start their own English-language blog. Their site contains remembrances of their fallen colleagues, firsthand accounts of US attacks on their offices, links to relevant reports on the controversy, Flickr photosets of protests calling for an official investigation, and al Jazeera's code of ethics. Also, a quick note to Tony Blair: " P.S. Thanks for talking Mr. Bush out of bombing our offices!" Not surprisingly, their blog is generating some comments.
posted by edverb on Nov 26, 2005 - 117 comments

Shhh! American Prisoners Being Held in Afghanistan This report is from Pravda, the Russian newspaper. I have not seen any media posting of this story and I wonder whether the story is false or our media does not want to go into this. Anyone at MF hear of this before?
posted by Postroad on Nov 28, 2002 - 17 comments

Is the US targeting al-Jazeera? In defense of al-Jazeera, they have interviewed Israeli officials and members of the Bush administration. They have also been critical of Arab dictatorships. In October of last year, Colin Powell tried to gag Al-Jazeera. Al-Jazeera's response? They did a story on the attempted censorship. Six weeks later, the al-Jazeera office in Kabul was demolished by a pair of 500 lb. bombs. Sami al-Haj, a cameraman for al-Jazeera, has been illegally imprisoned without charges by the US for nine months. His wife -- the mother of Sami's three-year old son -- assumed that he had been killed until she received a letter from him in April. Can we really say that their approach to journalism is biased and disrepectful, but ours is not?
posted by insomnia_lj on Sep 30, 2002 - 14 comments

New US paper aims at Afghan war truth What do you do when you are fed up with the biased and slanted coverage that the major news organizations are giving the "war on terroirsm"? Start your own newspaper of course.
"A newspaper aimed at providing news of the war in Afghanistan is to be launched this month. Its editors argue that the mainstream media in the US are not providing a full picture of the war and its effects. "
posted by futureproof on Apr 5, 2002 - 25 comments

Afghanistan looks at itself:

Q: So if I brought you free films but they weren't about fighting, would you show them?
A: No.

A moving photo-essay on rebuilding Afghanistan's media sources.
posted by modge on Feb 22, 2002 - 5 comments

Sometimes, often even, life imitates art. Rarely is it as spot-on as this example. Recall if you will, actor Robert Downey's character in Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers. Compare Downey's character to this photo.
Now, try not to laugh.
No, really. Be serious, because this picture pretty much sums up everything thats gone wrong with modern journalism (and does so without even so much as a caption).
posted by BentPenguin on Dec 26, 2001 - 17 comments

"I felt no spark of creativity...only guilt that I survived to tell the tale." We're all newshounds here, so how about a thought on for the eight journalists that have died bringing us news in Afghanistan?
posted by Kevs on Dec 15, 2001 - 7 comments

Journalists killed in Afghan ambush
posted by Oxydude on Nov 19, 2001 - 13 comments

Are war reporters manufacturing a picture of a failing war effort? Slate's William Saletan makes some interesting points. Reporters get frustrated simply reporting the same stuff each day -- they want news. With the current rarity of dramatic events in Afghanistan, Saletan suggests, media outlets are growing impatient, and letting their "professional biases" distort the picture they present. (Shucks. If only Bin Laden had tried to escape in a white Ford Bronco....)
posted by mattpfeff on Nov 1, 2001 - 27 comments

BBC's John Simpson reports on the attacks from inside Afghanistan. i rate his reporting and am a great admirer of hir work and books
posted by quarsan on Oct 7, 2001 - 4 comments