Impoverished Ethiopians search a city trash dump site for food and items that they can sell or barter in the capital city of Addis Ababa. (photo by Zoriah, www.zoriah.com)

Zoriah Miller, who publishes photographs of the name Zoriah, is an award-winning independent journalist who travels the globe, photographing and telling stories about the people and places he sees. The insight of the lone journalist, not tied to, bound–or protected–by major media interests, provides valuable insight.

From one of Zoriah’s recent blog postings about his time in Ethiopia:

“I am in Ethiopia working on several projects, including one on the lives of the impoverished people of this country. The government goes to great lengths to keep stories like these from being told, including arresting journalists, spying on photographers, etc. What is life without a few challenges right? I do feel it is important to capture such issues and bring them to light, especially when there has been little captured here in these regards. Assuming I don’t “disappear” over here, I hope to bring you more images on these subjects soon.”

The panel and reception will be at the German House, 871 United Nations Plaza, at 49th Street, on the second floor. For reservations, call the OPC office at 212-626-9220 or e-mail boots@opcofamerica.orgThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it to put your name and the name of a guest on the reservation list. Also bring a photo ID to get through security.

American Journalists to Recount Fall of Berlin Wall
Monday, November 9 at 6 p.m.
Panel of American journalists (reception following) with German Consulate
German House
871 United Nations Plaza, at 49th Street, second floor

The “Berlin Twitter Wall,” as it’s called, is an initiative of KulturProjekte Berli, a not-for-profit organization that promotes networking and mediation of art and culture.

Launched on October 20, according to the press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the virtual wall was blocked by Chinese authorities after almost 2,000 Chinese Internet users left Twitter messages there.The wall currently has just over 4,000 tweets posted on it, mostly in Chinese.

“Chinese Internet users must not be prevented from accessing the Berlin Twitter Wall,” said Reporters Without Borders in a statement released this morning.  “Initiatives like these are important platforms for the promotion of freedom of speech as well as for critical voices and protest.”

RSF added that many foreign news outlets and social-networking sites remain inaccessible to Chinese users.

Twitter account holders can post comments that appear automatically on the berlintwitterwall.com site by using the hashtag #fotw (fall of the wall) .

So when I think about my reluctance to let my reporter’s notebooks out of my sight, I realize there are good reasons. One notebook can contain a major record of my recent life and work as a reporter. My current notebook contains interviews with Christian Parenti and Ian Olds, who made the documentary “Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi ” together, about their slain Afghan colleague who was killed after being kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan. It also includes notes from a screening of “Fixer,” which is a searing look at life and death and the work in between for foreign correspondents in a place like Afghanistan.

Although I have never been to Afghanistan myself, Olds’ film transported me there in an eerie and disturbing way. I wasn’t the only one. During an interview, Olds told me, “More often than not, it’s silent through the credits [at screenings of the movie].”  Olds added that his most recent work has an impact on people that isn’t very cheerful. “I think some people are very hopeful or optimistic about Afghanistan,” Olds told me, indicating the possible level of reflection at work in the minds of the audience. “But it’s hard to be so after seeing this movie.”

His colleague Christian Parenti, an award-winning journalist, remembers the grimmer aspects of Afghanistan and Kabul from his time there.  “It’s really, really depressing,” Parenti told me about his time in the country’s capital, Kabul. “It’s the subtle things that are really grim,” he added, giving the example of a formerly large Soviet building that is bombed out and filled with homeless people living there.  “That kind of thing is haunting,” said Parenti. Parenti and Olds, like truly good journalists and documentary makers do, transported me to Afghanistan without ever having to leave New York.

In the same notebook is a long sought-after interview with esoteric photojournalist and filmmaker, Tim Hetherington. Hetherington won’t call himself a writer, but he is gifted with the written word. And he won’t call himself a photographer, either, but he takes pictures that are are lucid, mesmerizing, and often full of important information.

When I interviewed him, his new book, “Long Story Bit by Bit: Liberia Retold” had been out for about three months, and he was starting to get excited about his upcoming documentary about a U.S. Airborne platoon in Afghanistan that he is making with his colleague, Sebastian Junger (of Vanity Fair).  Hetherington is a perfect gentleman (he’s British), but doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to expressing himself. Surprisingly, he’ll even disown his own position as a well-known photographer who is on his way to serious stardom. (You can see more about his book here).

“I’m not interested in photography….” Hetherington told me when we met for an interview at a Mexican restaurant in Manhattan in August. (He wasn’t sure of the difference between a taco and a burrito as he’s from London).  “I’m interested in visual communication. Who cares about photography? Who cares about video?” Apparently, not even the photographer in this case, which makes his work all the more intriguing. What I find delightful about a professional like Hetherington is that he is as humble and disarming as he is talented. It’s no wonder he can look through his lens and capture the fatigue of a war-weary Marine resting from battle, as he did in a photograph that won the World Press Photo of the year award in 2007. Hands down, he has been my favorite interview so far this year.

My current notebook also contains the dust and scribblings of some travels in Israel earlier this month. I traveled throughout the West Bank for a series of stories I have been working on about Arabs and Jews who live in the occupied areas of Israel (known as the West Bank). There’s an interview with the mayor of a small city there, Ariel, who refused to call U.S. President Obama by his first name, instead insisting on using his middle name and calling him “Hussein Obama”. There are quotes from American settlers who emigrated from the U.S. to live in Efrat, Israel to fulfill lifelong dreams. There’s the vision of a Jewish woman settler in Karnei Shomron of a world where Jews belong to the land as much as the land belongs to them.

And last, but not least, the melodic musings of a man who lives on a mountaintop overlooking Jordan and Jerusalem in an illegal outpost settlement that he founded ten years ago.  He told me of his love of the desert home he shares with his wife and charming son. He said the desert can be a hard place for some people to live, because there you are “confronted with yourself”. His only conflict with his bedoin neighbors is whether they keep their goats out of his gardens. Inserted in the middle of these several visits to settlements was a day of tension in Jerusalem in which Israeli security officials feared violence would erupt.

The most recent interview in my worn notebook (which is almost full), is with famed Israeli writer Etgar Keret. Keret’s wickedly sharp sense of humor is balanced tremendously by his sensitive, insightful, and borderline philosophical views on the world and writing. Actually, it’s not borderline. Keret has no borders around him, at least none he has consciously put there.

I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw him in a talk at the New York Public Library with Ira Glass on October 28. And then I couldn’t stop thinking when he expressed his views about what Israelis often refer to as “the situation” (the conflict between Israelis and Arabs). I asked Keret how he feels when he’s either praised or criticized about his writing. He said likes the praise, and doesn’t mind the criticism. And in the end, Keret added something incredibly insightful about the triangular relationship between him, his books, and his readers. “There’s a distancing act where we both get closer to ourselves,” Keret told me.

A distancing act that brings us closer to ourselves? Sounds exactly like the illegible (to everyone but me) scribbles in my reporter’s notebook. When I flip through its worn, ink-marked pages, I realize that sometimes the best mirror of all is other people.

READ THE ORIGINAL POSTING AT MY BLOG ON MEDIA AND FOREIGN POLICY HERE

Keret, who is author of several books and two screenplays, will be interviewed by This American Life’s Ira Glass for NPR.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009
at 7:00 PM
Celeste Bartos Forum
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
5th Avenue and 42nd Street (directions)

$25 general admission and $15 library donors, students and seniors with valid identification

Get tickets here

“The Marines around McChrystal, including the local battalion commander, Lt. Col. Christian Cabaniss, looked surprised, even alarmed, when McChrystal removed his protective gear. But as the group walked the rutted streets into Garmsir’s bazaar, they began taking off their helmets, too.

“Who owns the land here?” McChrystal asked, peering up the street and into the shops. “Is it owned by the farmers or by landlords?”

It was the sort of question a sociologist, or an economist, would ask. No one offered an answer.”

Known for his almost too close for comfort presence on the ground in war zones, Filkins is a reliable source for a picture from the front lines. You can read the full article (several pages long) here.

RSF will hold a press conference at the Overseas Press Club to go over details of the report and what it calls “the precarious situation for journalists covering sensitive and often censored issues by governments.”

During the press conference, RSF will also look at how journalists maintain their safety while detained, some circumstances surrounding arrests, the role of the journalist as “neutral” observer, ethical dilemmas in getting the underreported story and the changing landscape of media in the new online social media age.

Clothilde Le Coz, Reporters Without Borders’ Washington Director,
will present the main findings from the 2009 INDEX

John R. MacArthur, president and publisher of Harper’s Magazine, Moderator

Guest speakers will include:
A video of Euna Lee
Producer for Current TV and held in North Korea in 2009
Angela Korchega
Reporter at the US-Mexico border
Ali Alnaemi
Former newsroom manager for the New York Times bureau in Baghdad
John Solomon
Executive editor of The Washington Times

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
Press Freedom Worldwide

Launch of the

Reporters Without Borders’
ANNUAL WORLDWIDE PRESS FREEDOM INDEX 2009

Time: 11am – 1 pm
Location: Overseas Press Club
40 West 45 Street - New York, NY 10036

Read the Newsweek online article about Bahari’s release here

The 42 year-old reporter is expecting his first child later this month, and his mother is in poor health. Newsweek speculated he was released on “humanitarian” reasons.

In a statement on Bahari’s release, the magazine said:

“We are relieved that NEWSWEEK journalist Maziar Bahari is home with his family today. We would like to thank all of those who supported Maziar through this long and uncertain period.”

]]> http://mediaforeignpolicy.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2009/10/18/jailed-newsweek-reporter-maziar-bahari-released/feed/ http://mediaforeignpolicy.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2009/10/13/obamas-war-on-frontline-tonight/ http://mediaforeignpolicy.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2009/10/13/obamas-war-on-frontline-tonight/#comments Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:40:02 +0000 Genevieve Long http://mediaforeignpolicy.foreignpolicyblogs.com/?p=317 Not to be missed on tonight’s Frontline–the newest from correspondent Martin Smith and RAINmedia on the war in Afghanistan. “Obama’s War” airs on Frontline on Tuesday, October 13 at 9pm on PBS (check local listings).

According to RAINmedia:

“Three years ago, a small cadre of US army officers huddled at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to re-write the service’s long-neglected counterinsurgency manual. Under the direction of General David Petraeus, the effort brought the battle for “hearts and minds” to the forefront of American strategic thinking. First tested in Iraq, the new approach is now being rolled out in Afghanistan on a grand scale. The stakes are huge for both sides. And the war promises to be longer and harder than most Americans understand. FRONTLINE investigates the fight on the ground and in Washington.”

For a preview of “Obama’s War”, click here.

There are deep historic grudges over the ground near Al-Aqsa, called Temple Mount, which includes the dome of the rock, where some say the footprint of Adam and the dawn of human history can be found. It is far too complicated to understand in the abstract, let alone explain in a few sentences. Suffice to say that when tensions flare over this part of Jerusalem, it’s truly no laughing matter.

Even so, on the ground this past Friday in Jerusalem, the number of journslists was shocking. Camera crews, photographers, reporters–there was a little bit of everyone. At some points it seemed as though there were more journalists than police.

The question came to mind, while I was in the midst of this gaggle of reporters as one of them–why were we there? A colleague of mine recently said, “People in Israel are news junkies.” So maybe it was a response to demand. Or maybe the competition factor. Everyone else was out and nobody wanted to be left behind, just in case.

It’s the latter thought that started to disturb me as the hours went by. Tensions had been high in recent days (or maybe higher than usual, since Jerusalem is always a bit edgy). As I walked through the streets inside the walls of the old city of Jerusalem–the route to Al-Aqsa mosque and the source of the tension–I looked around every corner for drama worth reporting, worth taking a photo of. There were barricades to the side streets leading to Al-Aqsa, and some barricades in the middle of main walkways (cars don’t seem to drive through the old city). There were scores of police, and a few agitated Arabs. One old Arab woman yelled after going through a barricade that all the Arabs and Jews needed to get out of the city. To say the old lady was the height of the drama I witnessed would be putting it mildly.

As I stood in a side street waiting for a good shot of something, two British women tourists passed, and asked if I spoke English. They wanted directions, but we ended up talking about the events of the day. One of them said they’d heard there were people (which kind, I don’t know) holed up in Al-Aqsa in protest. I told her I’d heard there would be a large protest and prayer outside the walls of the old city later for all those who were denied entry to morning prayers at the mosque.

“There are about 1,000 rumors in this place!” she exclaimed to me, and we all laughed at the irony of it all. In that moment, reporters chasing such news didn’t seem so different from chasing rumors.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here to report the truth!” the woman said after I gave them my Epoch Times card and explained why I was there. Then she hesitated, and added a last thought. “At least one version of the truth, anyway.”

And as it turned out, she was right. The protest outside of the walls did happen about 2 hours later. It was peaceful, with scores of heavily armed Israeli police on one side, and scores of quiet Muslim worshipers on the other. They sat and listened to a slew of rhetoric in a speech made in Arabic that was so mundane my bilingual colleague found it too boring to translate in full. Then they prayed. Then they left. It was a day of good photo ops of interesting characters in a play.

On my way back to my newspaper bureau in Tel Aviv, I ran into another American at the bus stop, a young man from the Jerusalem Post. A brief, loud conversation on his cell phone revealed there was finally some drama happening. As he sprung up and started back in the direction of the old city, I ran after him, “Is something happening?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m just on my way back there,” he answered excitedly. “You can come if you want.” Suffering from fairly severe dehydration, I didn’t manage to keep up with him, but did see some of his footage later. Violence had erupted in some of the neighborhoods of eastern Jerusalem (which is code for largely Arab neighborhoods); there was stone throwing, rubber bullets, some women threw planters and paint from rooftops, and about 12 Israeli soldiers were injured.

When I saw the video footage, I felt like I missed the story. Then I started to search the Internet for other coverage, and found a surprising imbalance in the mainstream media reports. During a day that was marked by large groups of people peacefully protesting not being allowed to go to Al-Aqsa, the media took the most violent slant by honing in on brief violence in a neighborhood in another part of the city. They had been sent out in search of blood, and didn’t stop until they found it.

It is a complicated part of the world, that’s true. And news is news, no matter which way you slice it. But after seeing the chain of events from the inner walls of the old city to the final product on the Jerusalem Post and other media’s websites, it’s questionable whether the news was the brief violence, or a day of mostly calm. In the end, the story I filed had a headline I thought was a more accurate depiction of the day’s events: “Jerusalem Protests Largely Peaceful.”

As media, the least we owe the public is the most complete story possible. Not just the most dramatic version of events.

Click here to read the original blog posting for the Foreign Policy Association