Tag Archives: war

Telegraph: ‘Crazy Horse 18’ implicated in other Iraq attacks beyond shooting of Reuters staff

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Following WikiLeaks’ release of almost 400,000 military documents relating to the war in Iraq on Friday, the Telegraph today reports that it appears that ‘Crazy Horse 18’, the signal which featured in a video released by WikiLeaks earlier this year showing the killing of more than 12 people, including two Reuters staff, has been implicated in a number of other fatal attacks based on the secret records.

Crazy Horse 18 was the call-sign which, after taking legal advice, refused to accept the surrender of two insurgents it cornered while they were firing mortars from a flatbed truck. It killed both men as they sought shelter in a nearby shack during the attack in February 2007.

In June that year, Crazy Horse 18 fired a string of missiles at two more flatbed trucks it thought were carrying missiles, despite recording that it had seen four women in a nearby house waving a white sheet. Six “enemy” died.

In another incident the same month, Crazy Horse 18 fired at a suspect van from which material is being unloaded into a car, and stayed on location “due to possible colatural [sic] damage” – a euphemism for civilian casualties, though the report does not record any.

See the full Telegraph report here…

AP: US military backs down on photography ban on soldier casualties

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US military leaders in Afghanistan have reportedly backed down on plans to ban news organisations from photographing or videoing US soldiers killed or injured in battle.

According to the Associated Press (AP), some confusion remains about what images can be captured by reporters embedded with the army in war zones.

The proposed ban came partly in response to the AP’s recent decision to publish images of a fatally wounded marine.

Full story at this link…

AP (via Captured Photos): Why the AP published images of a fatally wounded marine

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The Associated Press (AP) has explained its decision last week to publish an image of Lance Corporal Joshua M. Bernard, a US marine fatally wounded in combat in Afghanistan.

According to reports, the soldier’s family did not want the photo in question to be published.

The AP has also confirmed it received a letter from US defence secretary Robert Gates asking the agency not to publish it.

Now the agency has explained its decision – including the following from the AP’s director of photography, Santiago Lyon:

“AP journalists document world events every day. Afghanistan is no exception. We feel it is our journalistic duty to show the reality of the war there, however unpleasant and brutal that sometimes is.”

Full story at this link…

AP: Pentagon allows photos of war dead

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Under a new US policy, the Pentagon is to allow photos of caskets at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, if familial consent is given. The practice was previously banned by President Bush in 1991.

Full story at this link…

Death toll rises for journalists killed in Georgia

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According to reports, four journalists have been killed in Georgia, since the country’s armed conflict with Russia began on Friday.

Dutch television cameraman Stan Storimans, 39, who was working for news channel RTL, was killed during the Russian bombing of Gori, the Associated Press has said. Storiman’s colleague Jeroen Akkermans was also injured by blasts, which killed five.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has also reported the deaths of two journalists in the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali. Grigol Chikhladze, head of Alania TV, and Alexander Klimchuk, head of the Caucasus Press Images agency and a correspondent for Itar-Tas, were shot at a roadblock erected by Ossetian freedom-fighters, RSF said.

US reporter Winston Featherly-Bean and fellow Georgian reporter Teimuraz Kikuradze, who were travelling with Chikladze and Klimchuck, were wounded in the attack and later taken to a field hospital.

An as yet unnamed Georgian journalist has also died in the conflict, after a shell hit his car outside Gori.

The BBC’s Gavin Hewitt also claimed his crew were under fire from Russian forces (thanks to Daniel Bennett for flagging this up):

Watch Al Jazeera’s Shooting the Messenger on YouTube

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Al Jazeera has posted its series on the intimidation and killing of journalists in conflict zones to YouTube.

Shooting the Messenger – a four-part documentary of 11-minute clips – focuses on how international correspondents, both reporters and cameramen, have become targets in the field with the recent death in Gaza of Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana’a and the release of Al Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj bringing the issue into sharp focus.

Watch the first part of the series, which was originally broadcast on June 14, below:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gOpp-zcFUA]

New York Film Academy teams up with NBC to train digital journalists of the future

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image of new york film school website

The New York Film Academy has teamed up with NBC News to offer a year-long training course in ’21st Century broadcast journalism’.

The course aims to train the next generation of journalists to ‘be prepared to navigate the evolving landscape of digital journalism.’

Students will have the chance to attend ‘master classes’ conducted by NBC news staff and can go backstage on NBC news programmes to learn about production.

Each student produces pre-recorded news projects, using both single and multicamera, which they edit using Final-Cut Pro.

Comprehensive coverage doesn’t come cheap, though. At around £8,500 per semester, there may still be something to be said for learning on the job.

Wired: Interview with war zone video blogger Kevin Sites

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Sites has used his own blog to break new ground in war reporting – the platform has freed him from the limitations placed on him as a freelance or correspondent.

The investigative journalist is a pioneer of multimedia reporting in the field, having led his own online video news show on Yahoo armed with only a laptop, satellite phone and video camera.