On Wednesday I was delighted to take part in an important discussion on news safety and the recent debates surrounding young freelancers working in hostile environments. The event was hosted by BBC Senior World Affairs Producer Stuart Hughes, who lead the discussion after his own articles on the same subject for the BBC CoJo blog which I highly recommend reading here and here

I was also joined by Colin Pereira, Head of Safety and Security at ITN and formerly of the BBC's High Risk Team, the Director of INSI - the International News Safety Institute - Hannah Storm, and upcoming freelance journalist Aris Roussinos who had just joined us back from a month-long trip to Mali.

You can watch the video on YouTube by clicking the picture above, or download the mp3 of the talk by clickinghere (right click and save as) or go to the podcast in iTunes here.

The conflict is moving irrevocably towards the importance of image over actuality; both Hamas and the Israeli government know this, and continue to make the most of it

The 'Free Gaza' cafe in Rashidieh refugee camp, the most southern Palestinian camp close to the Israeli border

Last week after the Israeli government retaliated to defeat at the UN General Assembly vote on Palestinian non-member statehood by announcing 3,000 new settlements near East Jerusalem, British Foreign Secretary William Hague expressed concern with the damage plans would do to Israel’s image. “They would undermine Israel’s international reputation and create doubts over its commitment to achieving peace with the Palestinians.” Hague’s comment hits home the increasing relevance of public relations when it comes to conflict. Having the moral high ground is one of the most important weapons in a government’s arsenal, and makes all the difference with the international watchdog of the UN - which has the power to condemn you, or to vindicate you in the muddy waters of modern warfare. Where new age spin comes in to play, is to legitimize armed conflict or to appeal to mass opinion.

The recent conflict between Gaza's Hamas and Israel bore all the hallmarks of PR spinning, political theatre. Elliot Abrams, Senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations theorized recently that Hamas instigated the conflict for PR purposes: “First, the PA in the West Bank was at centre stage with its UN membership initiative. Hamas seemed marginal while this diplomatic effort was playing out. With this war Hamas has once again grabbed centre stage.” 

Positive reaction to Hamas’ role in the conflict was widespread amongst Gazan Palestinians, even more so after Netanyahu decided against a ground invasion despite general Israeli opinion in favour of sending troops into the Strip.

Fruzsina Eördögh wrote in Slate last month: “The attacks on Gaza have become a war of words, pictures, and video as much as an actual war of missiles, “martyrs,” and dead children.” Hamas leapt upon the widespread coverage of civilian deaths in Gaza, with the Al Qassem Brigades harnessing the power of social media via Twitter to rally supporters; offering pictures of dead civilians littering the streets; insulting the IDF and uploading posters and slogans to heat up the online conversation.

 Following the ceasefire, Hamas encouraged widespread celebration, slating the negotiations as a ‘victory’ they had won; a feat of pr spin having lost their top military commander Ahmad al-Jabari, as well as suffering substantial damage to their infrastructure including the destruction of the Gaza Interior Ministry. While that claim is of course debateable, the surge in popularity Hamas enjoyed following the clashes, is not. Demonization of Zionists – and Israelis and Jews by extention – is rife in Hamas’ rhetoric and just another part of the spin.

PR spin however may also found across the border. Quoted in Vanity Fair, Gonen Ginat of Israel Hayom, spoke of “Netanyahu’s conviction that, at their core, many problems, both his and Israel’s, are really matters of hasbara: Hebrew for public relations.” 

Israel has been accused of employing spin by those who see disparity between the repeated mantras of the need to defend with observations that the state possesses the fourth finest army and defence capabilities in the world – and is widely acknowledged to secretly possess nuclear weapons. Added to the destructive military campaigns of the IDF, which are often dubbed with deceptively benign names such as ‘Operation Summer Rain’ in 2006 where tanks blitzed through the streets and warplanes bombed infrastructure, causing failure of the sewage system. Power plants were also bombed, cutting power to hospitals overrun with more than 200 civilian casualties and more than a thousand injured.

Noam Chomsky in his ‘Chronicles of Dissent’ suggests, however controversially, that the Israeli state consciously manipulates the historical persecution of the Jews to promote its own interests. 

While that may or may not be a fair assumption to make – after all, Israel is all too often at the brunt of hate speech and existential threats from groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian regime – some have argued that Netanyahu’s bellicose rhetoric and the Israeli culture of fear which it propagates does nothing to combat its relations with those governments it lies in conflict with.

In an article in the Guardian, Jewish writer Seth Freedman says that the Israeli obsession with its own security is causing national paranoia of a fear that makes integration with their neighbours more or less impossible. “By continuing to provoke and bully [the Palestinians], they create what they fear. Another generation branded Amalekites: another reason for Israelis to circle the wagons, batten down the hatches and convince themselves that it is simply their lot to be eternally hated and reviled.

 He adds: “It’s also understandable that the government encourages and promotes such fairy tales in order to garner support for their never-ending policies of irredentism and subjugation.”

While this is no suggestion that both Palestinians and Israelis are not able to see beyond the spin of their respective leaders, it is something to be considered as yet another forestalling to the actual conflict at hand. Only when the governments in this region relinquish their obsession with public opinion will they ever put a stop to this never-ending destructive cycle, and continue with what they must do – return to dialogue, and negotiation.

Original article for the Independent

Aceh’s strategic location on the tip of Sumatra places it on Indonesia’s most north, six hundred miles northwest from Singapore and on the same latitude as Sri Lanka in the Bay of Bengal. After the Dutch relinquished control of its East Indies, Aceh was handed to the Indonesian administration. There are various theories as to what caused the start of the conflict.

Aceh was one of the last bastions of the ancient Malay empire of Srivijaya, rooted in Sumatera, to resist colonial rule. It was a campaign of thirty years against the Dutch in the late 1800s that was mirrored in the thirty year struggle from 1976 against Jakarta, after the unshackling of colonialism lead to what the Acehnese viewed as unfair treatment and extortion by their new government. Broken promises by Sukarno, the charismatic first leader of Indonesia, are often cited in the origins of the conflict. Although the official start of the war between GAM and central government wasn't until 1976, the disorganised sorting and resorting of Sumatera and its provinces (and Aceh in particular) after Dutch rule ended thirty years previously resulted in continuing widespread civil unrest that preceded offical records of the insurgency. But independence? Civil liberty and justice? A poetic fight for freedom?

 Irwandi Yusuf at our interview in Banda Aceh

“Freedom is not the goal of guerrilla warfare.” Irwandi Yusuf peers at me through delicately framed glasses and a cloud of sweet-smelling cigarette smoke.  “We were outnumbered by the Indonesian army; they came in thousands. But they could not defeat us, because they did not know our numbers!” He leans back and gives a sardonic laugh, unsuccessfully trying to conceal clear pangs of bitterness. “If it were not for the trees they would have shot us all dead, and perhaps the war would not be thirty years.”

So if freedom was not their goal, what were they fighting for?

“Look, if we could not beat the Indonesians, we would want to fight in order to negotiate a better situation. A little bit like haggling. When we arrived at a suitable deal, we signed the treaty in 2005.” Was it the money or control over Aceh's considerable natural resources? A tired shrug followed by a lazy drag from a clove cigarette, followed by the exhalation of sweet smoke with the words: "It was many things." So much for the oft-reported, poetic fight for justice.

Upon losing his seat as governor of Aceh in late April, Irwandi, a former insurgent and chief of intelligence for the Acehnese rebel army, has been engaging in his own kind of political guerrilla warfare. The creation of the new Aceh National Party (PNA), like the currently ruling Aceh Party, is comprised almost wholly of former rebel fighters from the now defunct Free Aceh Movement (GAM).  All of the PNA’s founding members are defectors from the ruling Aceh Party or the Aceh Transitional Committee – the body set up after the peace treaty with Indonesia that dealt with the transition from martial law after the dissolution of GAM’s military units and the ending of the near-thirty year conflict.

“In 2001 GAM controlled almost all of Aceh, but in 2004 GAM was almost defeated. But Indonesia didn’t know that. They didn’t know we were almost defeated because we kept fighting. They didn’t know we had run out of people or ammunition.”

 I asked him, “Where did you get your ammunition from?”

“From you,” he quips, and barks out a laugh.

Earlier this year the autonomous province of Aceh held its second election since the cessation of hostilities following the devastating 2004 tsunami. The first, in 2007, was won by an independently-running Irwandi and the latest by his bitter rival and former GAM comrade, the head of Aceh Party, Zaini Abdullah.

In response to his defeat (and continuing abandoned plans in 2007 to form a new party), Irwandi has not only established the Aceh National Party but has filed a lawsuit with the Indonesian Constitutional Court disputing the legitimacy of the local government, claiming that the elections were wrought with intimidation and fraud.

The local warlords who make up the senior echelons of the Aceh Transitional Committee have a sprawling chain of authority in the villages of Aceh that penetrate right down to the local level. In Aceh Darussalam, one of the most Western parts of Aceh, a combined effect from the tsunami and decades of conflict has led to a complete disintegration of the local judicial system, with a drastic decrease in the number of reported cases and a mass exodus of legal staff who have fled due to fear of hostility and intimidation according to a 2010 report by the UNDP. It’s a pattern that has been repeated throughout the province, and may be one reason that such brazen violence and intimidation by campaigners and party members was pervasive in the lead-up to April's gubernatorial elections.

Widespread reports of violence, bullying and intimidation to voters across the province have led to a sparring point between the opposing candidates. The regional polls that determined who the next governor would be were originally scheduled for the end of November last year, but were pushed forward four times by central government in Jakarta, citing ‘security disturbances’ in response to increasing levels of hostility and a greater need for supervision at electoral stations around the province. According to various NGOs, supervisory volunteers received threats during the campaign period. Evi Narti Zein of the Coalition of Human Rights told the Jakarta Post that some of their 108 volunteers had encountered threats during monitoring.

In February, masked gunmen opened fire on the house of an election campaign team member. On New Year’s day this year, a group of armed men opened fire on a small café in Banda Aceh killing eight people and wounding six. In the past six months, 12 people have been killed from indiscriminate shootings, not including the New Year’s café attack, and in February Darma Sahlan, a journalist for a local magazine who was investigating embezzlement, was found dead in a ditch in South East Aceh. In the week before the gubernatorial elections last month police released a statement saying that they had arrested six men for illegally possessing explosive devices which they linked to an uncovered terrorist plot before the elections. At the same time, some 3,000 protestors gathered outside a local office of the Aceh Independent Elections Committee in the Gayo Lues district, hurling rocks and stones at the building.

 A few days after I spoke with Irwandi, the General Secretary of Aceh Party, Yahya Muadz, alongside the party spokesperson Fachrul Razi, assured me that instances of intimidation “had happened on both sides”. In truth, I had to press both party members twice to address the allegations directly, after initially responding with comparative details on the amount of money spent on the competing campaigns. Yahya, sombre and earnest as he sat with me under the whirring of an old fan in the brick red Party office, illustrated his point with an example from Irwandi’s own hometown. He described how members of Irwandi’s campaign team attacked villagers with knives and machetes when they tried to prevent them from removing an Aceh Party banner from the street. Intimidation, he said, was definitely happening on both sides.

“Don’t call it intimidation,” Irwandi had told me only a few days earlier. “It’s terrorism. They terrorized. They killed my friend.”

In July 2011 an influential former commander of GAM, Saiful Husein, was shot dead in a coffee shop after defecting from Aceh Party and encouraging other party members to switch their allegiance and support Irwandi in the elections.

Iskandar Hasan, chief of the regional Aceh police, announced in March that six people had been arrested with possession of explosive devices on suspicion of planning a terrorist plot. The men were also linked to the death of Saiful Husein from Irwandi’s campaigning team. When asked about the incident, Yahya refuted the claims, saying that they were unfounded because the police had not issued a statement. He did not accept Iskandar’s announcement.

Yahya irritably stubbed out his cigarette, leaned forward and spoke to me in English for the first time during our interview: “Listen. Usually in our system of politics, people like Irwandi can make claims like that. But what he probably didn’t tell you was that he used a lot of money during campaign time and gave much of it to his team; new cars, new brands for the campaign. He took a lot of money from the citizens of Aceh. But us, we just used Rp5.5 billion ($591,250) in total and we still beat him.”

Irwandi – though debonair, eloquent and engaging - is not exactly spotless himself. In August of last year during his governorship, it was reported that Irwandi granted permits for a palm oil concession in the Tripa Peat Swamp in Aceh despite an existing moratorium between Indonesia and Norway. Given his green credentials, which were the defining part of his electoral campaigns, the scandal caused disillusionment amongst many of his supporters.

Despite the bickering between the two young parties, Irwandi stressed that the PNA was there to stay, and because of that, their first objective is to work in cooperation with Aceh Party. He even went as far as saying that the media ought to be forgiving of their mistakes in their first official year of office.

The long tale of Aceh’s many plights have certainly appealed to many journalists over the years. After the tsunami thousands of western reporters and documentary makers descended on the small town of Banda Aceh. Out of the rubble came films of hope and renewal, of wide-eyed, brown-faced children quaintly dressed in colourful t-shirts bearing branded slogans and happy shots of local and bule alike rebuilding schools, clearing debris and embracing in shows of friendship. But the regeneration in Banda Aceh was certainly not exaggerated, and buffeting through town on the back of a moped taxi I saw little evidence of the brutal destruction that left the town little more than a tropic waste land. Amzi Olivin is a local civil engineer, and recalls his despair at the extent of damage. “I remember going around the town and surveying the damage – it would take five, ten, maybe more years before we could build Banda Aceh to what it used to be.

 From the back of a moped on the way to Lampu'uk beach

  “But it seemed the Western world felt sorry for us, and saw all the things that the journalists were writing and filming...buildings came out of the ground and streets returned within one year, and after three or four years it was like tsunami never happened.”

The earthquakes and tsunamis that have battered these shores may one day return, and the violence that has occurred across Aceh is unlikely to ever be properly examined in spite of Irwandi’s referral to the Constitutional Court. The Aceh Party is moving swiftly past the elections with implementation of new policies and Zaini Abdullah’s installation. Now that the campaigning period is over it is hoped that Aceh will see relative peace and respite from this last year of shootings and violence. Until the next round of elections, at least.

It was great to be able to see Bush House whilst it is still home to the World Service and to meet the faces behind the programmes on the station. Sir David Attenborough also joined One Planet to discuss his incredible 60 years of broadcasting, something I was delighted to see for myself.

The special episode of Newshour discussed the future of international broadcasting and had a fantastic panel of Tony Maddox from CNN, Wadah Khanfar formerly of Al Jazeera and Peter Horrocks of the World Service, and was hosted by Lyse Doucet.

You can listen to the episode here

Above: Lyse from Newshour preparing her notes - not that she used them at all!

Above: Peter Horrocks, head of the BBC World Service

Above: Tony Maddox, Vice President and Managing Director of CNN International

Above: Wadah Khanfar, former Director General of Al Jazeera

Last night the Libyan community in London gathered outside the embassy by Hyde Park Corner, to light sky lanterns in memory of the lives lost in their fight for freedom, and in remembrance of other countries in their own struggle for democracy. Libya's revolution was marked on February 17th of last year, when defectors and loyalists clashed following protests in Benghazi two days before. 

 Despite the lingering troubles in Libya and its difficult transition to democracy, the progress it has achieved in a year has been remarkable. We may be guilty, in the West, of placing undue pressure on the countries of the Arab Spring. It took hundreds of years of toil for us to achieve our democracies - why do we expect the transitions today to be smooth and efficient operations? We must support these nations with understanding and patience, in what will undoubtedly be a long road ahead.

Adie is one of those enigmas that produces opposite reactions from different people. She has been described by some as ‘the Vera Lynn of war reporting’ and ‘cantankerous’ and ‘imperious’ by others. She has openly derided her own BBC for glamorising their anchors recently yet she herself was once compared to a ‘younger Julie Christie’.

 Yet for all her idiosyncrasies, the most baffling contradiction of all is her unscathed psychology in the  face of the horrors one can only imagine she has witnessed in her exciting life. True to form, when asked about the severity of the threats she and other war correspondents face she dismisses the scale of this and compares herself to her parents who lived through two world wars, as well as reminding us that journalists face these terrible events alongside soldiers, medical personnel and other citizens. She snuffs out any admiration for having been shot three times – ‘grazed’, she revises, before finishing, ‘…it’s a reminder not to be careless.’ War correspondence, she assures, need not be a dangerous job. However it is clear that she feels her career has been one of vocation – the need to share and describe to the world the events that need to be seen. It is this call of duty she feels has stabilised her mental balance in the face of what she has experienced, and no doubt the driving force of her tenacity during that renowned report from Tiananmen Square in 1989.

 In spite what must be a plethora of memories of genocide and atrocity she is optimistic of the world’s future and is hopeful for a resolution to the current hostilities of the Middle East – a hope she expressed whilst opening the 2010 Ubud Writers’ and Readers’ Festival, the theme of which is ‘Unity in Diversity’.

JM: what is your one possession that you never travel without?

KA: Believe it or not, a toothbrush. Many moons ago I was told by members of Special Forces that if you get up in the morning after a night spent on damp ground in the middle of a jungle or the world’s worst hotel room, with no bathroom in sight, you’ll always feel better if you brush your teeth.  (They also added you can shine your shoes with a toothbrush or possibly use it as a weapon of last resort. They didn’t explain how).

JM: In a different life, what would you have chosen for a career instead of one in journalism?

KA: As I never expected to be a journalist, didn’t choose to be one, and never trained as one. I’ve always expected that this was actually ‘the other life...’

JM: During your career, you’ve been shot at three times -did the experience change your views on your career?

KA: I’ve been grazed by bullets three times and taken shrapnel once. It’s a reminder not to be careless.

JM: How did your family and friends cope with the risks involved in your line of work?

KA: My grandparents went through WW1, and my parents went through WW2. They’ve had more experience than I’ll ever accumulate.

JM: Scenes of violence aren’t fully understood by merely watching the report on television but for those who experience it for themselves, it can be psychologically traumatic. How did you feel after reporting from scenes of mass genocide in Rwanda and Sierra Leone?

KA: All kinds of experiences can be emotionally traumatic -but not inevitably. Journalists who cover major events involving violence are pretty realistic before they set off for such assignments.  Anyone who’s read a word of history, especially about conflict, should have no illusions about what might happen. Of course, it’s very affecting to see terrible scenes -but you have work to do- to describe and convey to other people what’s happening.  If you believe you’re doing something worthwhile, it helps you get through it. And most journalists are pretty sociable people - they don’t bottle up emotions or deny what they’ve seen. We’re alongside soldiers, medical personnel, aid workers, ordinary citizens in all this -we’re not a special case.

JM: When asked about your risky career, you have always maintained that you were able to choose not to do anything dangerous in your line of work. How important is it, do you feel, for news reporters to be at the scene of a dangerous story rather than standing in front of a blue screen where they will be safe and unharmed?

KA: You get as near to being ‘at the scene’ as you can - as long as you bear in mind that you’ve got to get back with the story. It’s not the journalists’ decision these days to ‘stand in front of a blue screen’. It’s editors who decide what kind of reporting they want, and ultimately the audience.

JM: The theme for this year’s Ubud Readers’ and Writers’ Festival is “Harmony in Diversity” - which is a profound ideal of Indonesian culture. Global alliances have continually increased throughout history thanks to treaties and institutions - Europe is an example. Do you think that in the future, the same kind of ‘harmony in diversity’ is possible for countries currently in hostilities with each other - such as in the Middle East?

KA: We can only hope - and I’m an optimist.

Photo above is courtesy of the BBC



While the majority of the audience and the panel agreed that conditions for women in Afghanistan had improved during the occupation, the negatives vastly outweighed the positives apparent in the country ten years on. Morgan Edwards, who has recently published a book called "The Afghan Solution" following her experience in the country, feels that the coalition squandered a 'golden opportunity' to resolve issues with the Taliban and Haqqani network, especially following the recent death of Abdul Haq.

  The most of the panel stressed the critical failure of the coalition concerning the social DNA of Afghanistan, namely its tribal structure. Assuming that the generic demographic is not anything but an amalgamation of different ethnicities, localities, dialects and communities will lead to a complete misunderstanding of the country which would ultimately cause any interference to fall short. This was stressed in the documentary clip, which showed tribal elders being presented with stills of the attacks on the twin towers on September 11th, and when asked about the location depicted in the photographs their response was to guess that they were taken in Kabul.

  Just as Wadah Khanfar was to tell our class the following week, the most important preparation you make as a foreign correspondent is more than a basic background to the country you are covering. A profound and diligent study into the country, its idiosyncrasies and details of its culture, history and most importantly its people, is essential to truthful and accurate journalism. Perhaps if the press revealed more about the flavour and nature of Afghanistan would real knowledge filter through to the politicians and authorities directly involved in the future of the people in this war-torn country.

Video streaming by Ustream

Above: Wadah Khanfar, former Director General of Al Jazeera at the James Cameron Memorial Awards 2011

At the award’s lecture, which was held at City University last Thursday, Khanfar spoke about the nature of modern day journalism and reiterated its fundamental mission in a passionate speech on its duty to the public. It was unavoidable, perhaps, for him to mention his shock resignation from the Al Jazeera broadcaster last month. He began by admitting that this year was ‘a different year’, focussing most of his speech on the Arab spring and Al Jazeera’s instrumental role in invigorating the Middle Eastern uprisings.

Above: Wadah Khanfar speaking to City journalism students after the James Cameron Memorial Awards Lecture

According to Khanfar, the journalistic mission was that of democracy, and that was only possible when the media put the public at the centre of their editorial policy.

I was covering the ‘Block the Bill’ protest on Westminster Bridge yesterday afternoon with a friend from my journalism course. I remarked that, in my opinion, the British protesters were pretty ungrateful for their quality of life, that in many countries a protest on this scale would not have been allowed in the first place. He disagreed, saying that the only reason we have achieved stability and rights is because we continue to hold our own government to account - by protestation, by our media, by campaigns and negative PR. If we did not, he argued, they would overstep the mark with their authority. I have considered this. Journalism is then, it seems, continually needed – even in a democratically mature society. It needs to be a perpetual watchdog to those in positions of power and responsibility. It needs to be a deterrent at the very least, or at least its threat of critical exposure. Many have criticised politicians who have ‘cuddled up’ with media magnates and seniors (I need not refer to whom). This may be wrong but at least it affirms the importance – in politicians’ interest – to maintain a good public profile. They at least realise that they are scrutinised, and acknowledge the ethical etiquette by which they must prescribe their actions, and if they do not, there are countless reporters who have it in their interest, as well as the public’s, to hang them out to dry.

In 1981, the Polish military enforced martial law upon the country. Radio and TV channels were all banned from broadcasting apart from the state-run network. The government had clamped down on the media and on freedom of speech. However, this was not without repercussion. Starting from a small town on the Czech border and eventually spreading throughout the country, started something called ‘the dog-walking hour’. Each night when the state-run news channel started at 7:30pm, nearly everyone in the town left their houses and walked their dogs in the central park. “It became a daily silent act of protest and solidarity. We refuse to watch. We reject your version of truth.” (The Elements of Journalism, Kovach) In another town, at the same time, television sets were moved facing the windows, spreading the message. With this pervasive protestation came underground news services, and as the decade crept towards the 1990s, the fall of communism collided with the rise of technology. With the advent of the computer, faxes and satellites came the unstoppable wave of information, and it was this information that led to democracy.

Last night from Egypt came a stark reminder that the country’s bid for democracy is far from over. After a group of Christians and Muslims alike gathered to protest against an attack on a Christian church, the SCAF Egyptian military were filmed running over civilians in tanks and shooting to kill. These video clips, photographs and allegations by witnesses on the scene exploded on the social networking site Twitter, yet Egyptian state TV portrayed the protests as angry Christians hurling rocks at Muslims and attacking the military.

TV presenter Rasha Magdy on the state-run Channel One was apparently emphasising that Coptic protestors were attacking the police, and she ended her report by urging citizens to protect the military. According to Twitter witnesses and Egyptian news forum Al-Masry-Al-Youm, “…despite its strategic location, the state media aired no footage of military armoured vehicles chasing and running over protesters in front of the building - footage that was repeatedly aired on private local and foreign channels. What state TV mostly showed were protesters blocking the Corniche and military tanks set on fire.”

 The Egyptian state TV failed its citizens last night for regressing to propaganda, and broadcasting not news but opinion. In Khanfar’s speech at the James Cameron Memorial lecture he stressed that despite having opinions, it was not part of a journalist’s prerogative to broadcast opinion: “I ordered my staff to fulfil our promise to the public; to give them knowledge and the proper tools to forecast what is going to happen…At Al Jazeera we do believe in people. We do regard them as our central reference point. Their interest is guarded by us. We have to take people as our reference and celebrate their capabilities of understanding and recognising.”

It is perhaps acceptable to claim that without Al Jazeera and international media the Arab spring might not have happened, or at least to the extent that it did. The promulgation of the coverage of the events starting with Tunisia alerted other nations in the region to this gradual unshackling of dictatorship, which itself stemmed from observation of democratic life in the West. We are seeing it again in the spreading of the “Occupy Wall Street” protests that started in Manhattan and have now spread to London. The internet has turned the world in to a smaller place, and what we see happening in neighbouring countries often encourages us to follow suit.

Sadly, despite the accessibility brought by globalisation, there are still places where those who want to join in a democratic future are being denied the rights. The media however, is the first port of call to achieve this. I saw many posts on Twitter with Egyptians calling out to the international community to recycle their clips at the scene, to do all they can - citizen journalists and politicians alike - to pressurise their government to conform to international standards of behaviour. Although the journalist may have lost some credibility recently with the public his mission still stands, and as naïve as it may sound from a young reporter at the beginning of her career, I believe that it will eventually succeed in its democratic aspirations and continue to be the watchdog of authorities, first and fore mostly remaining a tool of the people it continues to serve.

Above: Wadah Khanfar speaking to City postgraduate journalism student Anne Laurent



Subscribers can read the article online here at the website, or below is an excerpt:

Julia Macfarlane, a student at St Andrews University, reviews thetimes.co.uk

The main story — a Times exclusive on sex grooming in Blackpool — proved to be a hot topic, garnering more than 50 comments by 9am. Portugal’s impending bailout was the main business story, which was succinctly explained with a nudge of blame at Alistair Darling, noted by (and commented on) by readers. This was accompanied by a useful graphic that laid out the key facts, figures and quotes.

However, the article “Obama’s golf buddy caught in prostitution sting”perhaps did not deserve its prominence on the homepage. The controversy of FCO colonial records proves to be the most controversial and most commented-on topic, and is accompanied by an engaging leading article, “Dust and Denial”. The best-received article was “The hero scouts of Libya”, which was a delight to read. The accompanying photos were outstanding and matched the optimistic tone of the article.

There is a breath of spring air in the Life section, which covers the best exhibitions in Paris, picking not just the flagship Manet exhibition at the d’Orsay but also under-the-radar art niches, such as the tantalising Vodun: African Voodoo exhibition. Once again the royal wedding dominates the view counts, with interpretations of the dream gown generating the most attention and excitement among online readers.