Vlad Jecan

Patrick Cockburn is a journalist and a veteran war correspondent. He began his carrier as a Middle East correspondent for the Financial Times and the Independent in 1979 and he concentrated on Iraq ever since.

In 2003, just weeks before the US invasion of Iraq, Cockburn made his way to the country. Thanks to a book published in 1999 which was co-authored with his brother Andrew, he did not receive a visa to enter Iraq. The book, Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein, was not seen well by the Saddam regime. Cockburn writes in The Occupation, that the book did well in the black market, as some Iraqis photocopied the book, multiplied it and then they went on and sold the book. In consequence, Patrick Cockburn had to pass through Syria and into Northern Iraq controlled by the Kurds. Then he crossed the Tigris River by boat and made his way to Baghdad.

For the next three years, Cockburn would report on Iraq for The Independent and after the invasion he started to write for the London Review of Books. He was present when the Saddam regime fell and reported on the anarchy and looting that occurred throughout the country after the invasion. Cockburn writes that American soldiers did not intervene in order to stop the looting and try to install order in the streets of Baghdad. Throughout The Occupation, Cockburn criticizes the steps taken by the Americans to pacify regions of Iraq and eventually the entire country. Continue reading →

The power of the press is indisputable, especially in wartime. It has become general knowledge that the outcome of the Vietnam War was heavily influenced by correspondents who went beyond military issues and reported the tragic reality of a confusing war. War reporting existed in one way or another since the first group of primitive men tried to kill another group. In fact, the first “reported” battle is that of Kadesh in 1274 BC, when Ramesses II fought the Hittite Empire. The Pharaoh ordered inscriptions detailing the battle on temples in Abydos, Luxor and Karnak[1]. However, highly propagandistic, the hieroglyphs do not account the battle in its full extent. Nor do Caesar’s writings twelve centuries later when he narrates his attept to invade Britain. Continue reading →

There are some people who hold passionately on the idea of a European Union media. A single media with original specifics that is available only within the borders of the EU and which is, of course, completely different from anything else. In their narrow perspective, EU media enforcers (maybe militants) ignore the very differences, cultural and economic, that can be found within the same borders.

Simple, pragmatic questions like “do the Brits and Bulgarians have similar interests?” are ignored. If we research the matter a little, we’d find out that the British are more interested in foreign policy than the Bulgarians, the later being more concerned with domestic politics. With a mind on this we can simply ask ourselves: “then how can there be the same media?” There are other examples as well: the British public is generally interested in archaeology, the Romanian news consumers are not; the French prefer print newspapers while the Romanians enjoy TV and online publications. In consequence, the media adapts to each country.

The regulations proposed by the EU are pertinent and most welcomed by journalists. However, they do not create, nor even try to establish a single EU media – this is what researchers and media commentators have to understand. We should celebrate diversity, not ignore it.

Hold the Front Page wrote:

Mark Gale had been a journalist on the Haywards Heath-based Mid Sussex Times for no fewer than 60 years.

He loved his job as the paper’s music and theatre critic so much he continued to work for nothing following his retirement, coming into the office for two days a week.

“His writing should have earned him a job on the nationals but he was not ambitious and loved his job here so much he never moved on,” said a colleague.

60 years of writing for a single newspaper, isn’t it amazing? This probably takes a lot of commitment, loyalty and modesty. It is also shocking because most journalists migrate from a paper to another due to various reasons or write for multiple publications in the same time.

A post by Elizabeth Redman got my attention. She asks: “Will coding become the next indispensable skill [for journalists]?” Or should journalists write not only articles but software as well?

Indeed, it has become imperative for journalists to be comfortable with social networking platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and other. However, coding is not compulsory for using social networking and perhaps journalists can survive without knowing PHP. The part with “finding out information and building a platform to express it in new ways” does not require coding abilities. If it’s about the content, then a writer can set up a free blog on platforms like Blogger and Wordpress.com and publish materials in no time.

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At the 2006 Nieman conference themed “Newspaper’s Survival” at Harvard University, editors, print and online journalists have discussed the future of newspapers and traditional newsrooms. Almost all speakers have started their presentation with the following statement: newspapers are in big trouble. Indeed, it is known that that print has lost considerable terrain due to the rise of the Internet. However, this may be the most serious crisis newspapers find themselves in, but it is not the first. In the 60s “the television began eroding their audience”[1].

Nevertheless, newspapers have survived. Back then, original journalistic genres have emerged and offered the audience a complete new experience. For example, the introduction of the factual fiction current, better known as narrative journalism, gave newspaper readers a whole new experience. Thanks to the fine writings of innovators like Martha Gellhorn, Truman Capote and others, readers have successfully received the new in news reporting. In other words, and to put it short, print journalism has adapted to the new.

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Not in Iraq, nor in Afghanistan have most journalists lost their lives. At the top of the list are the Philippines where in late November 31 journalists have been deliberately targeted and murdered. Other countries with casualties in the name of the ‘right to know’ principle are Mexico (13), Somalia (9), Pakistan (7) and Russia (6).

It must be mentioned, however, that 24 of the 137 death cases were accidental. Nevertheless, the total number is shocking. You can read here a report by the International Federation of Journalists.

Update: You might also be interested in reading Jim Boumelha’s commentary on this matter – available here.

I was never a fan of Facebook, nor, I believe, that I will ever be. However, this doesn’t mean that I do not acknowledge the importance of this social media platform for journalists.

Most press officers of various government institutions use Facebook to communicate information related to their activities and so do companies, research groups and think thanks. Therefore, journalists can connect to these profiles and receive information in real-time. This goes beyond interpersonal interaction when the average user hooks up to another just to see his or her photos or whatever else. Checking Facebook has become an important part of a journalist’s daily activity – and this is also available for Twitter.

In Zimbabwe, however, it seems that the government has another opinion. In consequence, the government has banned the use of Facebook for all employees of the state controlled Zimbabwe Newspaper Group during work hours. Journalists may now check their profiles only after 5PM.

“Its unfair given that most of people no longer use e-mails to communicate. As journalists we  need  to  research and  its  through the face book and  other  sites that  we  get  back  ground information for  our  stories. This  is  the  reason  why  we  end  up writing  half baked stories because we would  have  nor researched,” said a journalist working for the Zimbabwean Herald.

Foster Dongozi, Secretary General of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists said that “It’s silly to make such restrictions in this era of modern information technology.”

Indeed it is. Journalists now risk missing vital information.

At the Nieman Narrative Journalism Conference at Harvard University in 2002, Bob Giles moderated a discussion between eight writers on the best approach to creative non-fiction. Giles opened the discussion by asking a relatively simple and direct question: “What does it take to do fine narrative writing?”[1] Each practitioner answered differently, some have emphasized technique and theory while others have simply shared their experiences. However, I found a few answers that might be appropriate to describe and maybe help to define narrative journalism.

Chip Scanlan, an associate professor at the Columbia University School of Journalism who has won numerous awards for writing and who was an active reporter, feature writer and national correspondent for various print publications, answered the following:

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I will not discuss the aspects of a so-called “EU media”, instead I will only raise a question which will help us in the upcoming debate. The question is:

Is there a specific media for the European Union? How does it differentiate itself from the “other media”?

At the moment I am skeptic and frankly I do not want to see a European Union-style media completely or partially different from the others. This thought is somehow paradoxical because inside the EU we have a multitude of different views on media – Romanian media differs in style and approach to the media in Britain.

In any case, I will try to further investigate the subject as I believe it to be quite interesting. More posts will follow.