Tag Archives: Somalia

Journalisted Weekly: Eurozone crisis, American downgrade, phone hacking, Syria, Somalia

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Journalisted is an independent, not-for-profit website built to make it easier for you, the public, to find out more about journalists and what they write about. It is run by the Media Standards Trust, a registered charity set up to foster high standards in news on behalf of the public, and funded by donations from charitable foundations. Each week Journalisted produces a summary of the most covered news stories, most active journalists and those topics falling off the news agenda, using its database of UK journalists and news sources.

Eurozone crisis, American downgrade, phone hacking, Syria, Somalia

  • The Eurozone crisis leads the news
  • US downgrade, the 11th phone-hacking arrest, and Mark Duggan’s shooting also covered lots
  • Thailand’s first female prime minister and the appointment of new Turkish military leaders covered little

Covered lots

Covered little

Political ups and downs (top ten by number of articles)

Celebrity vs serious

Arab spring (countries & current leaders)

Who wrote a lot about… the trial of Hosni Mubarak

Jack Shenker – 6 articles (The Guardian) Nate Wright – 3 articles (The Times) Adrian Blomfield – 3 articles (The Daily Telegraph) Robert Fisk – 3 articles (The Independent) Paul Owen – 3 articles (The Guardian)

Long form journalism

Sign up to the campaign for a public inquiry into phone hacking at hackinginquiry.org
Visit the Media Standards Trust’s new site Churnalism.com – a public service for distinguishing journalism from churnalism
Churnalism.com ‘explore’ page is available for browsing press release sources alongside news outlets
The Media Standards Trust’s unofficial database of PCC complaints is available for browsing at www.complaints.pccwatch.co.uk

For the latest instalment of Tobias Grubbe, journalisted’s 18th century jobbing journalist, go to journalisted.com/tobias-grubbe

Journalisted Weekly: Phone hacking, Eurozone, Norway, Somalia and Stepping Hill Hospital

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Journalisted is an independent, not-for-profit website built to make it easier for you, the public, to find out more about journalists and what they write about. It is run by the Media Standards Trust, a registered charity set up to foster high standards in news on behalf of the public, and funded by donations from charitable foundations. Each week Journalisted produces a summary of the most covered news stories, most active journalists and those topics falling off the news agenda, using its database of UK journalists and news sources.

Phone hacking, Eurozone, Norway, Somalia, Stepping Hill Hospital and more

for the week ending Sunday 24 July

  • An unprecedented ‘covered lots’ section – the Journalisted team have rarely seen such a busy news week
  • Phone hacking, Eurozone crisis, Norway terror attacks, Somalia, Stepping Hill Hospital and the Space Shuttle Atlantis all covered lots
  • General Petraeus stepping down and four Kenyans winning the right to sue the UK government covered little

Covered lots

  • The phone hacking scandal continues to unfold, 1258 articles (including the Murdochs undergoing a select committee grilling, 346 articles, and David Cameron setting out the terms of the Leveson Inquiry, 89 articles)
  • The Eurozone crisis, 455 articles
  • Terror attacks in Norway, carried out by right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik, claim over seventy lives, 168 articles
  • Famine in Somalia worsens despite increased foreign aid, with Britain giving £90m, 137 articles
  • The suspicious deaths of patients at Stepping Hill Hospital, Stockport, with a nurse charged with causing damage with intent to endanger life, 115 articles
  • The Space Shuttle Atlantis returns home to the Kennedy Space Centre for the last time, 79 articles
  • Singer Amy Winehouse, found dead at her Camden home on Saturday afternoon aged just 27, 107 articles
  • Artist Lucian Freud dies aged 88, 69 articles

Covered little

  • General Petraeus hands over command in Afghanistan to General John R. Allen, 3 articles
  • Four Kenyans, who claim they were tortured during Mau Mau uprisings, win the right to sue the UK government, 18 articles
  • The Princess Diana Memorial Fund to close after fourteen years, 3 articles

Political ups and downs (top ten by number of articles)

Celebrity vs serious

  • Zara Phillips, the Queen’s grand-daughter, who marries rugby player Mike Tindall this Saturday, 19 articles vs. Judge finds that undercover police officer Mark Kennedy acted unlawfully, 16 articles
  • Wendi Deng stands up for her husband, Rupert Murdoch, at the select committee, 104 articles vs. the UK hands over control of Helmand’s capital, Lashkar Gah, to Afghan forces, 48 articles
  • The Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding dress goes on display at Buckingham Palace, 35 articles vs. Prince Andrew steps down as the UK’s trade envoy, having been criticised over his links to a controversial businessmen, 27 articles

Arab spring (countries & current leaders)

Who wrote a lot about…’The Norway terror attacks’

Peter Beaumont – 6 articles (The Guardian/The Observer), Andrew Ward – 5 articles (Financial Times), Mark Townsend – 5 articles (The Guardian), Tim Lewis – 4 articles (WalesOnline), Roger Boyes – 4 articles (The Times), Tom Peterkin – 3 articles (Scotland on Sunday), Duncan Gardham – 3 articles (Daily Telegraph)

Long form journalism

Sign up to the campaign for a public inquiry into phone hacking at hackinginquiry.org
Visit the Media Standards Trust’s new site Churnalism.com – a public service for distinguishing journalism from churnalism
Churnalism.com ‘explore’ page is available for browsing press release sources alongside news outlets
The Media Standards Trust’s unofficial database of PCC complaints is available for browsing at www.complaints.pccwatch.co.uk

For the latest instalment of Tobias Grubbe, journalisted’s 18th century jobbing journalist, go to journalisted.com/tobias-grubbe

Jon Slattery: Unicef asks to move agenda on from phone hacking

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Over on his blog, Jon Slattery reports that Unicef took out adverts in the national press today to urge readers “to move the news agenda on from phone hacking” and instead be alert to the famine in parts of southern Somalia.

The ad, in the form of a letter from UNICEF UK executive director David Bull, states: “I am writing for your support in moving the news agenda on. The story about phone hacking does matter, but there’s another, far bigger and vital story that’s going unreported.”

Read more here…

Journalisted Weekly: Syrian refugees, Grand Prix, & Southern Cross

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Journalisted is an independent, not-for-profit website built to make it easier for you, the public, to find out more about journalists and what they write about.

It is run by the Media Standards Trust, a registered charity set up to foster high standards in news on behalf of the public, and funded by donations from charitable foundations.

Each week Journalisted produces a summary of the most covered news stories, most active journalists and those topics falling off the news agenda, using its database of UK journalists and news sources.

for the week ending Sunday 12 June

  • Syrian crackdown and Southern Cross crisis gripped headlines
  • Grand Prix news drove the back pages
  • Vietnam-China tensions and world’s largest refugee camp, covered little

Covered lots

  • Grand Prix, with Jenson Button winning the Canadian race, and the Bahrain race postponed due to political unrest, 273 articles
  • Troubled care home provider Southern Cross, denied government bailout, cutting 3,000 jobs, and planning to hive off over 130 homes, 154 articles
  • Syrian refugees fleeing the town of Jisr al-Shughour along Turkey’s border, with 120 of the 189 dead alleged to be soldiers killed for refusing orders, 119 articles

Covered little

Political ups and downs (top ten by number of articles)

Celebrity vs serious

Arab spring

Who wrote a lot about…’Ed Miliband’

Nicholas Watt – 8 articles (The Guardian), Andrew Grice – 6 articles (The Independent), James Kirkup – 6 articles (The Telegraph), Allegra Stratton – 4 articles (The Guardian), Robert Winnett – 4 articles (The Telegraph)

Long form journalism

More from the Media Standards Trust

Visit the Media Standards Trust’s new site Churnalism.com – a public service for distinguishing journalism from churnalism

Churnalism.com ‘explore’ page is available for browsing press release sources alongside news outlets

The Media Standards Trust’s unofficial database of PCC complaints is available for browsing at www.complaints.pccwatch.co.uk

For the latest instalment of Tobias Grubbe, journalisted’s 18th century jobbing journalist, go to journalisted.com/tobias-grubbe

The BBC’s Africa correspondent on the danger of being a journalist in Somalia

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Andrew Harding, the BBC’s Africa correspondent, on the dangers of working as a journalist in Somalia:

One man recognises me and cameraman Phil Davies from a previous trip we made about seven years ago. He used to be a journalist but not now.

“Too dangerous,” he says with a frown, then mimes the action of a saw, amputating his arm. He lives in an area of the Somali capital controlled by the Islamist militia, al-Shabab. “They lash people there. Every day – for the smallest thing.”

Full blog post on bbc.co.uk at this link…

BBC: Why we kept silent on the Chandler case

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Writing on the BBC Editors’ Blog, world news editor Jon Williams defends the broadcaster’s decision to keep quiet about the release of Paul and Rachel Chandler while other news organisations broke the story around it. Concerned that details of the release being published could jeopardise the couple’s chances of making it to safety, the family had secured a super-injunction prohibiting coverage until they were confirmed to be back in safe hands, but not all news organisations obeyed it.

While we’re not in the business of censoring the news, no story is worth a life – we accepted the argument of the family, their lawyers and the judge that to do otherwise would jeopardise the safety of Paul and Rachel Chandler.

Some other news organisations did not – which is why, for some hours, during the Chandlers’ dangerous journey through Somalia to the safety of Kenya, the BBC stayed silent while pictures of the couple could be seen elsewhere.

While it wasn’t a comfortable position for us, or our audience, to be in, it was the law and a restriction put in place to try to ensure the safety of the Chandlers. Had we done otherwise, we would have been in contempt of court.

Full story at this link.

CPJ: Radio journalist fatally stabbed in Somalia

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A radio journalist working in Somalia was fatally stabbed last week, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

Abdullahi Omar Gedi, 25, was attacked after leaving work at Radio Daljir. The motivation for the killing is not yet clear, says the report.

Full story on CPJ website at this link…

Related reading: BBC World Service journalist Mohamed Olad Hassan on the dangers of working in Somalia.

CPJ: A Somali journalist in exile

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The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has a special report on Ahmed Omar Hashi, a Somali journalist CPJ has helped through its assistance programme.

He’s been threatened and targeted for death. He’ seen his colleagues and friends killed. Now, like other Somali journalists, Hashi struggles in exile and hopes one day he can resume his work.

Full report at this link…

Video report at this link…

NUSOJ: Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan released in Somalia

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The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) has announced that the Canadian female journalist Amanda Lindhout and Australian photojournalist Nigel Brennan were released yesterday (25 November) after 15 months in captivity.

“The two journalists were taken to heavily guarded Hotel Sahafi in central Mogadishu, where they are staying tonight. They are due to be flown to Nairobi tomorrow morning.

(…)

“Four members of the Transitional Federal Parliament led by Ahmed Diriye were handed over the two journalists at Sarkuus checkpoint near Ex-control of Afgoye District, last checkpoint of TFG forces.”

Full story at this link…

Background on journalists’ 15-month ordeal at this link…

Stephen Farrell’s kidnap raises the ‘media blackout’ question: it’s time for a debate in the UK

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This week’s operation in Afghanistan to rescue New York Times journalist Stephen Farrell, during which a British soldier, Farrell’s Afghan translator (Sultan Munadi) and two civilians were killed, has provoked national debate in the UK:

“One senior Army source told the Daily Telegraph “When you look at the number of warnings this person had it makes you really wonder whether he was worth rescuing, whether it was worth the cost of a soldier’s life.” (Telegraph.co.uk)

Many of the commenters on news stories feel very strongly that it was wrong for a journalist’s actions to lead to such tragic consequences, as Jon Slattery noted on his blog yesterday. Further still: “Members of the Armed Forces have expressed anger that he [Farrell] ignored warnings not to visit the site of an air strike on two hijacked fuel tankers that killed scores of Taliban and innocent villagers,” the Telegraph reported. Others defend the role of journalists in Afghanistan: for example, the Committee to Protect Journalists and the International Federation of Journalists.

This tragic incident also raised another issue, that of media silence. Today a special report by Joe Strupp on Editor&Publisher questions whether media blackouts are appropriate when reporters are kidnapped in war zones. It’s an excellent overview of recent events, that looks back at the case of another New York Times journalist, David Rohde – the paper managed to keep news of his kidnap off Wikipedia until his escape seven months later.

The question of media blackout is one Journalism.co.uk has raised in the past. In January, we reported on the silence surrounding the kidnap of the Telegraph’s Colin Freeman and José Cendon in Somalia. We had been asked not to report on the case by the Telegraph and the UK Foreign Office when the pair went missing at the end of 2008. The ban was lifted when they were released.

However, as we reported, some information was published before the blackout request was made clear: the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released information relating to the journalists’ kidnap on November 26 2008 and Roy Greenslade subsequently blogged about it at Guardian.co.uk – the post was removed but it was still captured in the RSS feed.

It’s a complex issue that Strupp raises in his E&P article:

“With Rohde’s escape, a major debate ignited in and out of the journalism community about how responsible the coordinated secret had been. Was this a breach of journalistic ethics, sitting on a story for so long mainly because a colleague was involved?”

Strupp quotes Edward Wasserman, a journalism professor at Washington & Lee University in Virginia, who echoed claims of other critics, that the Times and similar news outlets would not do the same for a non-journalist: “Some people are in a position to implore the press for restraint better than others”.

It is a debate we need to have in the UK too: the London-based Frontline Club would be an ideal venue in which to hold a discussion with representatives from the UK foreign office, press freedom and safety organisations and news organisations raising the reasons for and against media blackouts. The practicalities of enforcement also need to be discussed. We understand that such an idea is in the pipeline, so we’ll keep you posted.

Please do share links to existing debate online.

In the meantime, here is a link to an item on this morning’s BBC Radio 4 Today programme, featuring Frontline Club founder and cameraman (and former soldier) Vaughan Smith and the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen discussing the Stephen Farrell case.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8247000/8247681.stm