Front line photography

Syria
A French photojournalist goes undercover to access the hidden plight of Homs as political unrest continues in Syria.

Iraq
Marike van der Velden captures daily life in Iraq. "In Holland," she tells the New York Times, "we don’t know anything about the Iraqi people".

Kenya
An aerial photo taken by Oxfam provides a glimpse of the scale of Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya. Global Voices has more on the camp which is home to 450,000 people. Many of those taking refuge have fled civil war and drought in Somalia.

Links on the BBC and blogging

BBC and blogs

• The BBC has started a new arts blog written by Will Gompertz. He's just been appointed arts editor for BBC News.
  

• The BBC's Mark Devenport blogs out of hours to cover the late night power-sharing deal in Northern Ireland:

"Many moons ago when I started this game I vowed not to blog out of office hours, but here I am at 11.30 pm tapping away at my keyboard. My excuse? I am in my office in the Stormont basement and upstairs in Room 315 the DUP assembly team is meeting. They started arriving around 10 pm tonight for what it's fair to assume is an extraordinary late night meeting to consider the deal."

• BBC Editor Jon Williams considers media restrictions in Iraq. Attention may now be focussed on Afghanistan but Williams highlights that reporting Iraq remains problematic. He is particularly concerned about these new plans:

"The Iraqi authorities are demanding journalists reveal their sources in response to complaints, in violation of the journalist's age-old responsibility to protect those who come to us with stories. And they want to prevent the international media from reporting stories that might incite violence or sectarianism, but have failed to clarify what constitutes 'incitement' or 'sectarianism'"

Blogging

• Here's a blogging survey conducted in Myanmar (Burma). (Most bloggers use Blogger, some Wordpress, 7/10 are male, most are under the age of 35. More here...)

And finally...

• If you've ever put together a piece of TV news (and even if you haven't), you need to make sure you don't miss this from Charlie Brooker.

White phosphorus and newsroom curmudgeons

I'm reading and writing about White Phosphorus, it's use by the US Army in Iraq and media coverage of it with special focus on blogging, of course, in November 2005.

In short, the episode was a major embarrassment for the mainstream media.* Beaten to the story, the mainstream media then made things worse by describing what amounted to some impressive investigative journalism as 'rumours' 'surfacing on the Internet'.

Indeed, as yet, I haven't found a British mainstream media article that actually mentions Mark Kraft by name - the guy who discovered an article in a military magazine that nailed the story.

This sort of stuff annoys bloggers, as you might imagine. In fact, it would annoy anyone regardless of whether they happened to blog about it or not.

Hopefully, I'll have some time to write a linked commentary at a later date, though if you really can't wait, you can browse my delicious links on the subject.

In the meantime, I'd recommend reading Jeff Jarvis on 'newsroom curmudgeons', which shows that some journalists haven't learnt from this and other episodes in the last few years.

*The 'mainstream media' is a term which is becoming increasingly meaningless as this article demonstrates, but you get my drift for the moment at least.

Links for today: Impressions of Iraq

• Last of Iraqis has a post on the security situation in Baghdad which I summarised on my Frontline blog.

• Another dentist in Iraq has also recently written about his view of life in Mosul and Baghdad.

• A psychiatrist has pictures of the 'buses' he uses to get to work.

• And finally, US Army officer, Lt G, swapped engaging the insurgency in Iraq for an engagement party of his own. Congrats!

Iraqi Blogger Killed in Baghdad

For more visit the Frontline.

Daily blog-news updates from Iraq

If you want a quick daily low-down on 'the good, the bad and the ugly' from Iraq then head over to LT Nixon Rants.

Here's his news from Iraq for April 7th.

War in Iraq: the first 'iWar'?

Lt G at Kaboom wonders what an iWar is, what it means and whether it applies to war in Iraq:

"iWar. Fitting, in that succinct, catchy pop culture kind of way. Perfect for this Era of Irony. No LOL-erskates for the whYkids, but they’ll get over it. iWar. It’s not my phrase, though I appreciate it and am happy to Oscar Wilde it. I got it from an article about blogging in the Iraq War that quoted me in it...

"...I War. Subject. Verb. Where’s the object? We’re still looking for it, five years later. How’s that for iRony?"

Best of the BBC Blog Network

Here are my picks from the BBC Blog Network over the last few weeks:

1. Robin Lustig reckons that no news from Iraq is not necessarily good news. His piece includes extracts from an email he received about the daily life of an Iraqi medical student.

2. World Have Your Say publish several letters from Baghdad reflecting on 5 years of conflict.

3. (a) The Editors blog about BBC World going off air in China.
(b) A week later the BBC's dot.life blog reports that the BBC news website is being unblocked.
(c) Jon Williams, World News Editor, sums up the situation.

4. iPM links to a video blogging surgeon serving with the US Army in Iraq.

5. Internet Blog on social networking guidelines for staff.

6. Newsnight uses blogs to find out what's happening in Zimbabwe.

7. World Have Your Say presenter Ros Atkins tries to square the BBC's commitment to impartiality with Jeff Jarvis's call for more openness and honesty. This is something I've blogged about previously.

The Mahdi Army revolt from the US perspective

Lt G is fighting with the US Army in Iraq. His latest post provides a six day account of his platoon's action during the 'Mahdi Army Revolt'. I particularly like this extract:

Night 1

"A second passes, and then my entire room shakes with inevitability while a M240B machine gun on the roof of the combat outpost returns fire directly above us. I roll out of my bed, getting my legs wrapped up in my poncho liner, and land gracelessly onto my face. SSG Bulldog barrels through our door like a runaway freight train. “It on now, oh yeah, it be on now!” he booms.

"We all start throwing on our gear in great haste with the notable exception of SFC Big Country, who is yawning from his bed, scratching his head. “You probably have time to put on pants Sir,” he advises, causing me to look down at a pair of yellow boxer shorts decorated with shamrocks and beer bottles contrasting sharply with the combat boots, body armor, and helmet I did manage to get on my body.

"I peek my head out the doorway, and not seeing any terrorist hordes coming for my scalp, agree with my platoon sergeant’s assessment. The gunfire above us continues while I find my pants."

Catch up links

Last week, I escaped the World Wide Web in favour of the World Wide View you get from up here:


And it was great to get away from my computer screen.

This is what I would have been reading if I hadn't been up this mountain.

• News about an escalation of violence in Southern Iraq and Baghdad. Last of Iraqis wrote a daily update of the situation from the Iraqi capital.
  

• Coverage of the Zimbabwe elections at This is Zimbabwe and Anita Coulson's Frontline Blog.

• This report suggesting that the US military use bloggers to gain the upper hand in the 'information war'.

• 10 Downing Street's 'official twitter channel'.
  

Iraq week: TV schedule

Thursday marks five years since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Here's a rundown of the fairly depressing television available over the coming days...

Monday 17 March

BBC Two
Ten Days to War
10.30pm - 10.40pm
Short film series providing snapshots of the decisions that led to British forces being deployed in Iraq five years ago, with commentary on Newsnight immediately afterwards.

ITV1
Rageh Omaar: The Iraq War by Numbers
The correspondent who reported on the toppling of Saddam's statue, and other key moments in the war, returns to Iraq to look for the human stories behind the much-disputed numbers. Omaar has written in The Telegraph about the documentary here.

Channel 4
Dispatches: Iraq - the betrayal
8pm - 9pm
Journalist Peter Oborne travels with foreign secretary, David Miliband, to survey the war-torn country.

Battle for Haditha
9pm - 10.50pm
Docu-drama of the Haditha killings when US marines killed 24 Iraqis in Haditha after the death of Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas on 19 November 2005.

Tuesday 18 March

BBC Two
Ten Days to War
10.30pm - 10.40pm

Channel 4
Jon Snow's Hidden Iraq
11.15pm - 12.10am
Jon Snow visits Iraq (without Miliband) and talks to a range of Iraqi citizens.

Wednesday 19th March

BBC Two
Ten Days to War
10.30pm - 10.40pm

Channel 4
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib

12.05am - 1.35am
Documentary film Rory Kennedy speaks to those caught up in the most infamous incident of prisoner abuse of the war.

US fatalities in Iraq and other links

US in Iraq

• Three American soldiers have died in a rocket attack in southern Iraq. At least 3,987 American military personnel have lost their lives in the five year conflict (AP)...

• ...but fewer Americans are aware of the extent of the casualties according to a Pew Research Center publication. Pew's research showed that only 28% of American adults are aware that the fatality figure is around 4,000.

• Here's one blog reaction to the research (Out of Iraq Bloggers Caucus).
  

Defence in the Budget in the UK

• The Treasury believes that the war in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost the UK Government £2 billion next year (The Times).

BBC

• The Guardian claims that social networking restrictions and guidelines are in the offing for BBC staff.
  

Ten Days to War

The BBC is broadcasting a series of mini-dramas entitled Ten Days to War. The 12-minute films provide snapshots of the decisions that led to British forces being deployed in Iraq five years ago.

The first film will be shown on BBC Two at 10.30pm, just before Newsnight. The series will also be available online.

Links for today: Iraq and Social Media

Iraq

• The leader of the national union of journalists, Shihab al-Tamimi, has died in hospital after being shot. (BBC)

Dentists seem to make good bloggers - at least they seem to in Iraq.

• Baghdad Dentist has just moved back to Baghdad after escaping to Mosul for a year. He's noticed an improvement in living conditions in the capital:

"As for baghdad, it's great. Now it's on the way to heal and stepping forward in the road of revolution and good future. Except for some what I call "defects" here and there, one may say that the city has settled down."

• Last of Iraqis says that the 'fanatics and criminals' have had to resort to new tactics in light of the changed situation in Iraq. They have found their movement has been more restricted and are no longer blowing up their own vehicles. Instead, they are attaching explosives to civilian vehicles and using a timer or a remote control to detonate them. He says the government has had to make some advertisements asking people to check their cars for explosives before they drive them.

• This is a useful website for those of you who are interested in blogs from Iraq.

Social Media: Twitter

• Paul Bradshaw, senior lecturer at Birmingham City University's School Media, has been blogging about Twitter, here, and here. Some of his students are taking up his advice and twittered the earthquake in the UK.
• Twitter was also the subject of a recent article in The Guardian by Jeff Jarvis, who clearly thinks telling the world what you're doing in 160 character updates is the way forward.
• If you don't know what Twitter is check out their website.
• I am Dan_10v11 if you want to follow me on Twitter.
  

Film of 101st Division, US Army in Iraq

Sean Smith is a photojournalist for The Guardian newspaper. His short film of Apache Company, 101st Division of the US Army recently won a Royal Television Society Award in the UK. Any comments on the substance of the film would be most welcome, especially from my American readers.

Coalition Casualties in Iraq

This project map is an interesting way of looking at coalition casualties in Iraq.

4 Rifles in Iraq last year

Michael Yon has written the final segment of his account of 4 Rifles deployment to Iraq last year. Part VIII follows the battalion to the border with Iran.

Guarding the border in sweltering heat was no easy task for the Rifles. According to Yon, 'we could probably put the entire Coalition on the Iraq-Iran border, and the area would not be sealed'.

Reading the Iraqi newspapers and other tales

Bit busy for blogging today but if you're desperately short of something to read, go and read somebody who does it much better than me. LT G in Iraq reflects on the military oath, Iraqi newspapers, and winning wars without Microsoft Office.

Escaping Iraq

Last of Iraqis is one of the few Iraqi bloggers still in Iraq. In this post, he tells us the story of his efforts to get into neighbouring Jordan.

Contact in Iraq and other links

From the American Milblogs:

• Lt G at Kaboom experiences his first contact in Iraq...

• ...while Frontline Fobbit begins his journey back home to the USA with a 28 hour journey to Kuwait.
  

In Iraq:

• Last of Iraqis, doesn't like the new national flag...

• ...and nor does Great Baghdad.
  

On blogging:

• A Kenyan blogger believes 'bloggers are the ultimate source of primary information in Kenya today'.