Journalism World 14 November, 2016

9th Arab investigative journalism forum

The 9th annual forum for Arab Investigative journalists will open in Jordan’s Dead Sea next month, bringing together over 25 panels and workshops on topics such as personal safety of reporters in conflict, to cross-border investigations and telling stories on multiple platforms.

The forum, held under the theme “ARIJ: a decade of investigating the Arab world; seeing, hearing, exposing”, coincides with the network’s 10th anniversary. More than 320 Arab and international investigative editors, journalists, trainers, academics and media students will attend the December 1-3, 2016 event, the eighth in Jordan since the creation of the Amman-based Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) in 2005.

Veteran journalist Walter “Robby” Robinson will be the keynote speaker. He led the Boston Globe Spotlight team’s Pulitzer Prize winning investigation into the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal and now is the newspaper’s editor at large.

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Journalism World 06 October, 2016

Female photographers on deadliest front lines

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Sprinting for her life as the Taliban sprayed bullets at her in open ground, Alison Baskerville had to rely on the covering fire of British soldiers to ensure she didn't die in Afghanistan.

Caught in an ambush, she was forced to dive for cover, only pausing when coalition air support arrived to scare the enemy away.

But Baskerville is not a soldier. She is one of a growing number of female photographers putting themselves on the front line of conflicts across the world, to capture at times what their male counterparts can't.

‘From the streets of Paris to the outposts of Iraq, women are now fighting along side men and now photographing alongside them also,' the 41-year-old respected war photographer and former sergeant in the RAF told MailOnline.

‘Times are changing, and some of the women I have seen in this industry are brave and confident. They put themselves in danger and challenge the stereotype of women and war.’

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Journalism World 15 August, 2016

How Stories Deceive

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On the afternoon of October 10, 2013, an unusually cold day, the streets of downtown Dublin were filled with tourists and people leaving work early. In their midst, one young woman stood out. She seemed dazed and distressed as she wandered down O’Connell Street, looking around timidly, a helpless-seeming terror in her eyes. She stopped in front of the post office, or, as locals would have it, the G.P.O. Standing between the thick columns, she looked even more forlorn. She was dressed in a purple hoodie under a gray wool sweater; tight, darkly colored jeans; and flat, black shoes. Her face was ashen. She was shivering. A passerby, stunned by her appearance, asked if she needed help. She looked at him mutely, as if not quite grasping the essence of the question. Somebody called the police. An officer from the Store Street garda station answered the call. He took her to a hospital. It seemed the best thing to do.

She was a teen-ager—fourteen or fifteen, at most. At five feet six, she weighed just more than eighty-eight pounds. Her long, blond hair covered a spiny, battered back. Once she did talk, some days later, it became clear that she had only the most rudimentary grasp of English—not enough to say who she was or why she’d appeared as she had. But the girl could draw. And what she drew made her new guardians catch their breaths. One stifled a gasp. One burst out crying. There she was, a small stick-like figure, being flown to Ireland on a plane. And there she was again, lying on a bed, surrounded by multiple men. She seemed to be a victim of human trafficking—one of the lucky ones who had somehow managed to escape.