After seeing confirmation that James Foley has been murdered at the hands of the barbaric terrorist group Islamic State, I have been struggling to find the right words to say – besides the obvious, which is to tell my students and fellow … Continue reading
Two influential advocacy organizations have issued a must-read report on how large-scale U.S. surveillance is not only harming journalism and the public’s right to know, but also undermining the rule of law by creating a chilling effect on lawyers trying to do their jobs in the national security realm.
That’s quite a strong and sweeping statement, but the 120-page report by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union backs it up in great detail, including interviews with more than 90 journalists, lawyers and both current and former government officials.
The joint report, released today (July 28), is titled, “With Liberty to Monitor All: How Large-Scale US Surveillance is Harming Journalism, Law, and American Democracy.”
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As we near the second anniversary (in weeks, that is) of the killing of Osama bin Laden, the flood of news coverage seems to be increasing by the day. That’s a welcome development, given the potentially seismic shifts that it will likely cause in the global war on terrorism and in the United States’ relationship with front-line states such as Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The fire hose of coverage is also welcome in that it proves that national security journalism is more robust than ever, even if it is barely recognizable from what constituted “the media’’ a decade or even a few years ago.
Those thirsting for information about bin Laden’s death — and his capture, his plots and plans, even his sad and sorry life holed up in Abbottabad — have virtually thousands of places to go to for news and analysis. The mainstream media has done a good job of “moving the ball’’ on all aspects of the subject, thanks in large part to an Obama administration, CIA and military that seem happy to be parceling out little scooplets of information. Some of the best Continue reading
One of the bravest and best practitioners of real-time war reporting was reportedly killed Wednesday in a mortar attack on the besieged Libyan city of Misrata. Award-winning war photographer and director Tim Hetherington was killed along with Getty photographer Chris Hondros in an attack that also wounded three other journalists, according to ABC News, for whom Hetherington has worked.
A colleague said other reporters in Libya had also confirmed Hetherington’s death. “Everybody is sort of looking at each other trying to figure this out. We are at a loss for words,’’ he said.
In recent years, Hetherington’s work has been a reminder that some of the best journalism of wars and conflict doesn’t come in the form of a newspaper article or even a TV news report or a book. He was a journalist who spent months at the front line of war in an effort to get behind the news of the day or even of the month, to get to larger truths in a way that can only be shown through the visceral medium of video.
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Today’s Washington Post has a must read for any journalist covering national security issues or who travels overseas in search of a story—especially female journalists, but also those who know them and travel with them.
In the story, Emily Wax shares her perspective on the special hazards for female journalists abroad. In doing so, however, she raises some important issues for all journalists and highlights some of the unexpected problems of reporting in “hot zone’’ countries with different cultures than those of the United States..
As Wax writes, she was a 28-year-old reporter about to cover Africa in 2002 when she was sent to rural Virginia to attend hostile-environment training. I know the course well because I take my students there for a weekend course a few times a year. In the wilds near Winchester, former British Royal Marines tell journalists such survival techniques as how to apply first aid, how to Continue reading
Times are hard for those practicing national security journalism, especially for the glossy magazines that try and take a broader look at the events of the day and put them in context.
But one of those magazines seems to be doing rather well, judging from its most recent issue that hit the Internet earlier this week.
Unfortunately for most of the world, that magazine is “Inspire,’’ the relatively recent online startup established by al Qaeda’s most enterprising affiliate.
Written in English and using cultural references familiar to U.S. teenagers, it is aimed specifically at radicalizing Muslims in the West.
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Is the American public getting a full and accurate picture of how the wars are going in Afghanistan and Iraq? Peter Bergen, one of the most well-respected and incisive journalists of our time, suggests that they may not be.
In a free-wheeling talk at the New America Foundation on Friday (3/11/2011), Bergen said that while the majority of polled Americans are against the war in Afghanistan, 65% of Afghans themselves recently told pollsters that they think the country is going in the right direction.
And while Americans are given one media report after another about how Afghanistan is filled with exploding bombs, attacking hordes of Taliban and a lawlessness that pervades every corner of the war-torn nation, the real story is a more nuanced one. A frequent traveler to Afghanistan, Bergen says there is violence and an insurgency, yes, but that it is largely isolated and nothing like the bloody civil war and vicious urban warfare that gripped Iraq for several years until a U.S. military surge helped restore some semblance of order.
In fact, Bergen said, one is more likely to be killed in Washington, D.C. than in Afghanistan, according to official statistics based on the percentage of deaths per population. And, he added, far fewer civilians are dying in Afghanistan now than in Iraq during the height of the war there—or, notably, even now in Iraq, even though Iraq has a smaller population. Continue reading
Nearly four years ago, with some fanfare, Georgetown University announced the launch of The Pearl Project, billing it as an innovative investigative journalism initiative in which faculty and students would use their classroom setting to search for clues as to “what really happened when Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered’’ while reporting from Karachi, Pakistan in early 2002.
They have just released the results of their investigation, and the lengthy report raises important questions about why more than half of the 27 people allegedly involved in Pearl’s kidnapping, detention and murder were never brought to justice in their home country.
But for those interested in the future of national security journalism—especially of an investigative nature—the details about how the project worked are as noteworthy as its findings. (see “The Truth Left Behind: Inside the Kidnapping and Murder of Daniel Pearl.’’) Continue reading
The case of former Guantanamo chief prosecutor Morris D. Davis and his firing from the Congressional Research Service has garnered some new publicity lately that is sure to rekindle the issue of whether federal government employees are allowed to discuss issues of national security in their off-duty hours.
The Los Angeles Times, in an article and subsequent editorial, delved into the issue of whether Davis was unjustly dismissed, as he claims, for writing twoopinion articles on military commissions at Guantanamo Bay. Continue reading
DENVER – As budget cuts have decimated national security journalism, one of the first things to go has been the kind of deep and prolonged embedded reporting that keeps the public abreast of what is happening in the two wars … Continue reading
Medill/GlobalPost investigation sheds new light on $3.2 billion U.S. mine clearance and victim assistance effort.
Medill/USA TODAY investigation of U.S. international food aid programs finds significant, entrenched problems
Read about the project.
→ Continue to the story.EVANSTON, Ill. — The Robert R. McCormick Foundation has renewed a $1 million grant to fund the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative at Northwestern University over the next two years.
The NSJ program provides journalists-in-training and working journalists with the knowledge and skills necessary to report accurately, completely and with context on events and issues related to defense, security and civil liberties. The initiative began in January, 2009 with an initial three-year, $1.3 million McCormick Foundation grant. The grant was also renewed for $1 million over two years in 2011.
