MetaFilter posts tagged with Afghanistan and journalism

"It is necessary to be bothered from time to time."

heeeraldo — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 14:38:08 -0800

"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 links: The AP's article about their decision to release the photo. Death of a Marine, a narrated slideshow from Julie Jacobsen.

Online Visual Journalism

netbros — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 21:45:33 -0800

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. The Afghan Diaries is a three-part documentary about Danish soldiers who put their lives at risk in order to defend our "peace loving nations" against global terrorism. Life After the Tsunami. Four years have passed since that horrible South Asian disaster. See the results of relief efforts. Bucharest Below Ground follows people living in the abandoned heat pipes behind the Casa Radio building. Children call this home. In a fast paced world where time is money and materialism is more important than anything else, some people give up everything to live in harmony with nature. Into the Wild is the portrait of a man who owns nothing, yet is happier than most. Wave after wave, they formed a veritable river of humanity that flowed onto the banks of the Ganges to celebrate the greatest spiritual festival ever held in the history of the world, the mighty Kumbh Mela. And from the San Jose Mercury News, Left Behind, a visual journey through some of Mumbai's worst slums areas. Shot around Bandra East, Mahim and Dharavi, there's also some great footage from the Deonar dump site situated on the outskirts of this mega city. All this, as insight into some of the video and multimedia pieces that we will be seeing a lot of coming from visual journalists in the near future. With the new Canon 5D Mark II at hand, productions like these, will inevitably be a lot easier to produce.

Don't Bomb Us.

edverb — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 09:59:48 -0800

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.

Shhh! American Prisoners Being Held in Afghanistan

Postroad — Thu, 28 Nov 2002 05:22:04 -0800

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?

insomnia_lj — Mon, 30 Sep 2002 14:18:44 -0800

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?

futureproof — Fri, 05 Apr 2002 01:17:43 -0800

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. "

modge — Fri, 22 Feb 2002 11:31:02 -0800

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.

BentPenguin — Wed, 26 Dec 2001 08:57:06 -0800

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).

Kevs — Sat, 15 Dec 2001 18:29:00 -0800

"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?

Oxydude — Mon, 19 Nov 2001 19:20:33 -0800

Journalists killed in Afghan ambush

mattpfeff — Thu, 01 Nov 2001 08:22:36 -0800

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....)

quarsan — Sun, 07 Oct 2001 12:41:45 -0800

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