GRNLive

At an age where anybody can take pictures and videos and everybody, with the sole global exception of my mother, can upload and broadcast materials from their own living room (or indeed, bedroom), to anybody who cares to watch, the borders between journalists and sources tend to blur. This subject has been addressed here before, …

Continue reading »

Live broadcast, by its nature, has its funny moments, whether in studio or out in the field. Equipment not working, mics that should be off suddenly coming to life, props collapsing, or wild animals breaking into the frame, and it is all hilarious, as long as it happens to another reporter or another broadcaster. All …

Continue reading »

Being a foreign correspondent is a fascinating job, which many desiderate. You get to be the envy of the people back home, in a foreign land that becomes a new home to you, at least for a while. You get to watch history unfold, and furthermore, you get to have an influence on how it …

Continue reading »

Today I interviewed Sunday Telegraph foreign correspondent Nick Meo as part of our GRNLive Interviews series. Nick has reported for GRNLive from Egypt, Libya, Norway and anywhere else his work sent him over the last few years. It was a very interesting and enjoyable conversation for me and hopefully for those of you who watch it. GRNLive’s …

Continue reading »

The Trial of Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Breivik, who killed, by his own admission, 77 people in a well planned attack, stirred an extensive debate about different aspects of its media coverage. Some commentators have gone as far as to say that Breivik should not be put on trial at all, as it would enable him …

Continue reading »

Guardian Media reports today that human rights activists in Bahrain are calling on the BBC and Sky to boycott the Formula 1 race planned to take place in the country on 22 April.   Zainab al-Khawaja, daughter of hunger striking imprisoned activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, told the Guardian “If the Formula One does come to Bahrain, …

Continue reading »

Simone de Beauvoir famously said “One is not born a woman, one becomes one”. Recently I’ve heard a veteran editor paraphrase the very opposite about news reporters. “Either you are it or you are not. News reporters are a species”, she said. The remark was made flippantly but I remembered having similar thoughts when I …

Continue reading »

International news are normally associated with the domain of the big global news organisations – BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera – flashy brand “idents” and anchors in suits speaking directly to correspondents on the ground. When it comes to local media and regional television and radio broadcasters, the assumption is that they should stick to affairs nearer …

Continue reading »

Last week, on International Women’s Day, Reuters hosted an event at their headquarters in Canary Wharf, London, to celebrate the publication of No Women Land – On The Frontline With Female Reporters. The discussion was chaired by the BBC’s Lyse Doucet, on behalf of the International News Safety Institute (INSI) with Sarah Whitehead (Head of …

Continue reading »

A group called Matter  has illuminated a fascinating fact about journalism in our time this week. The San Francisco based group has posted a project on kickstarter.com, a website which enables entrepreneurs to raise money from the public. Matter asked to raise $50,000 for publishing a weekly “single piece of top-tier long-form journalism about big …

Continue reading »