iraq

Saudi Crackdown on Camera Phones: July 20, 2004

"Camera phones are already illegal in the kingdom, but until now they have been tolerated by the authorities. [...] People have been buying phones as quickly as possible because they think they are going to be taken from the shops. The Ministry of Commerce and other relevant departments are currently devising new measures to stop camera phones being used to invade people's privacy, the Arab News newspaper has reported. [...] phones are also being confiscated at airports and from guests attending weddings."
[BBC]

"Iraq Blog Count" Site Lists Over 60 Weblogs in Iran: July, 2004

Quite a substantial list at the site, including soldier blogs. Navigate from the links on the right.
[Iraq Blog Count]

Soldier Personal Videocam Commentary in CBS News Report: Date Unknown

This link was forwarded to Camera/Iraq without reference to its original context. It is posted on CBS News.com and is part of a Dan Rather report. It presents personal videocam footage—forbidden by the military—by a soldier who discusses her experience and attitudes with Rather. [Please forward additional info to Camera/Iraq]

[CBS News—RealAudio]

Khurram Saeed: "Photos of Contrition": July 13, 2004

"The faces in the 100 photographs are solemn. There are people of various faiths, cultures and ages. They hold handwritten signs with messages of peace and contrition addressed to the people of Iraq. [...] These ordinary Americans, from Alaska to Florida, Massachusetts to New Mexico, are taking part in a project meant to bridge the distance between two cultures half a world apart. Developed by the Upper Nyack-based Fellowship of Reconciliation after the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal in May, the Iraq Photo Project's goal is to collect photos from regular people who want to convey their feelings directly to Iraqis. While some of the signs in photos apologize specifically for the actions at Abu Ghraib, others use the opportunity to express regret for the invasion and occupation. [...] Hossein Alizadeh, coordinator of the Iraq Photo Project, said he would attempt to get the images on Arab TV channels and in Arab newspapers so they could reach Iraqis and other Muslims."
[New York News]
[IRAQ Photo Project]

Deborah Fallows & Lee Rainie: "The Internet as a Unique News Source": July 8, 2004

"During some of the most turbulent weeks of the Iraq war nearly one quarter of Internet users (24%) went online to view some of most graphic war images that were deemed too gruesome or horrific for newspapers and television to display. Further, of those who have seen the images, 28% actively sought them out. Overall, however, Americans are conflicted about the idea of these disturbing images being available online. By a 49%-40% margin, Americans disapprove of the posting of such images. A strong cultural divide emerges between Internet users and non-users: Internet users approve of the images being online by a small margin of 47% - 44%, while non-users disapprove by an overwhelming 58% - 29% margin. These are some of the results of a nationwide phone survey done between May 14 and June 17 - a period just following massive world coverage of the murder and dismemberment of American contract workers in Iraq's strife-torn town Fallujah, pictures taken at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, and the capture and beheading of U.S. civilian Nicholas Berg. The horrific nature of many of the war-related images that have appeared online have left Internet users with a range of feelings. The data show that millions of Internet users want to be able to view the graphic war images and they see the Internet as an alternative source of news and information from traditional media. But many who do venture outside the traditional and familiar standards of the mainstream news organizations to look at the images online end up feeling very uncomfortable. Women are particularly opposed to the display of the images and are much less likely than men to have viewed the images online."
[Pew Internet & American Life Project]
[Report in PDF format]

Pedro Meyer: "Icons Of This War...": May 23, 2004

"I don't think it's too far fetched to assume that the main icons of this second US war in Iraq in 2004, still in process, will be the amateur digital pictures of the tortures performed on Iraqui detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. [...] digital cameras became for the Bush administration what the tape recorder was for the Nixon White House [...] If the most emblematic images from this war were photographed by amateurs, if agencies are able to send out people to take photographs who have never taken pictures, but have access to certain places, and if we are into a tidal wave of imagery coming in from all the digital cameras that are flooding the world; I am sure that traditional photojournalism as is being taught today in schools all over the world, better have a second look at reality and be prepared to tell their students that things are no longer how they used to be and therefore need to adjust their expectations."
[Zone|Zero Editorial]

Christopher Allbritton: First Reader-Funded Journalist-Blogger

Allbritton is a former AP and New York Daily News reporter. Now he is the web's "first fully reader-funded journalist-blogger, making regular word and image posts to his weblog."
[Back to Iraq]

Mark Glaser: "Back to Iraq 3: "Blogger-Journo Balances Dual Role in War Zone": July 7, 2004
Good backgrounder and report on Allbritton's current work.[Online Journalism Review]

Jin Hyun-joo: "Korea: Kim's Execution Video Banned": June 24, 2004

"The government and Internet portal sites said yesterday they would take stern measures against the possible spread on the Internet of the video showing the beheading of the Korean hostage. [...] Yahoo Korea: "Considering Korean people's condolences toward the deceased, we are going to delete any pictures or video footage that show the killing of the Korean hostage...As the beheading of the hostage was not aired, it is less likely that the footage would proliferate on the Internet as it did in the Nicholas Berg case." [...] With its emergency monitoring system running for 24 hours, the Ministry of Information and Communication said it would advise Web sites to get rid of the clips as soon as they discovered them. "The Web sites that fail to follow through the instructions will be subject to shut-down or police investigation," an official at the ministry said."
[Asia Media]

Vaughn Ververs: "Opening the Internet Floodgates": June, 2004

"The message from news consumers to the traditional news outlets, from the daily papers to the cable news channels and the Big Three networks, is becoming increasingly clear: "If you don't deliver what we want, we'll find it elsewhere. Ignore us at your own risk." This isn't a new message, but it's one that poses a growing risk that consumers will go elsewhere -- and not return. [...] The point isn't so much what is proper but what is available. Despite the awareness the mainstream press has of the Internet, talk radio and even e-mail, traditional media outlets have yet to grasp a simple fact of today's information landscape: They are no longer the prime gatekeepers of news. No longer can we say that if it's not in the New York Times or on "CBS Evening News," a story does not matter. When information is out there now, it's out there. Not only is it easier to find, it also can be spread instantly with a click of the mouse or a read on a radio show. To ignore what millions have heard is arrogant at best, harmful at worst. [...] Instead of acting as gatekeepers, the traditional press should become the ratifiers of news. Take on those rumors and prove them to be without merit. Show those pictures and give the consumer the kind of context that isn't so prevalent on the Internet. Get out in front and lead the way on some of these stories -- and before long, the buzz will be that what's energizing the Internet is old news. [...] Journalists who choose not to cover a story simply because "those who wish to view such things can find them on the Internet" are risking their own demise. Once "such things" are found, the people who sought them may never come back."
[National Journal]

Video-blogging Will Sharpen the Debate

"These events were recorded by participants or bystanders. The images were posted on the internet, making them directly, freely and immediately accessible around the world. In other words, journalists played no part in recording or interpreting the images. No editors intervened, government censors and spin doctors were impotent. According to Steve Vines, publisher of a Hong Kong weekly news and political satire magazine, Spike "the main barriers to publishing - cost and geography - have vanished and the result is explosive...unfiltered, uncensored images are now starting to drive the menu of the mainstream news oulets. After Web-logging became a news source for conventional media after the US-led invasion of Iraq, the next step, "Vblogging," will enable those with a desire and a little technology the chance to write, shoot, edit and distribute video journalism on their own, even from the field," forbes.com, the website of Forbes magazine, says. So the challenge to traditional journalism as the determinant of what is news and how news should be filtered will only intensify. And the debate about whether undigested news is objective, useful and moral is bound to sharpen."
[Mail & Guardian - Via Smart Mobs]

Jeff Jarvis: "News Judgement Is Political": May 17, 2004

Dennis Dunleavy: "The Next Revolution Will Be Digital": May, 2004

"The immediacy of these images and their dissemination through the Internet circumvents the formidable "food chain" of communication channels imposed by government and carried out through conventional mainstream mass media. As the natural proclivities of soldiers snapping scrapbook trophies to show the grandchildren someday, these images add a grainy and unaesthetic reality to an often-sanitized portrayal of our foreign exploits. Fortunately, there are some individuals who still believe in democratic civics.

The digital camera represents an important tool in keeping those in power honest about their actions. In this case, citizen soldiers disgusted by the barbarity of others turned to the media to report what they believed to be unconscionable behavior. [...] The next revolution may not be televised by embedded journalists, but rather by an army of citizen soldiers carrying inexpensive digital "happy snap" cameras. [...] The next revolution will be digital and is being pinged across the email right now."
[Source: The Digital Journalist]

Brooke Gladstone interviews photo editor Peter Howe on NPR: May 14, 2004

"Howe: in some ways, we probably nowadays have less reason to believe photography. But in fact, actually it seems to becoming more and more important. [...] Gladstone: And as you observed in a very interesting article in Salon.com this week, this could mark the first time in history that the most iconic images from a war were taken by amateurs. Howe: It's almost becoming a new form of journalism. It doesn't conform to the rules that a lot of us were brought up with as journalists. There is no fact-checking. We don't know whether this photograph's authentic or that photograph's authentic. But once it gets out on the internet, it does seem to carry an equal weight to that which has been fact-checked and that we know comes from a reliable journalistic source. [...] Gladstone: Luc Sante wrote in the New York Times this week that "perhaps the digital camera will haunt the future of George W. Bush the way the tape recorder sealed the fate of Richard Nixon.""
[NPR]

Ellen Simon: "Digital Cameras Change Perception of War": May 7, 2004

"[Keith Jenkins:] “With the technology now, the amateur photographer is as capable as a professional journalist and is operating with the same tools: Digital camera, laptop and an Internet connection...The embedded process was supposed to give government a better handle on what journalists were doing, but now you have this whole rogue operation of civilians with digital cameras who have access to things the media don’t." [...] Because digital cameras have features like automatic focus, they have made it easy for anyone to take technically good photographs. Combine that with Internet connections that have made it easy to send pictures in seconds, and images of the war that previously might not have been seen have found an enormous international audience."
[MSNBC]

Tim Porter: "Digital Proof, Human Source": May 6, 2004

"The two biggest recent stories to emerge from the Iraq - the administration's don't-show-don't-know policy toward the photographing of military caskets and the puerile abuses by Army reservists inside Abu Ghraib prison - were based on digital photographs not made by journalists but by participants in both stories. [...] For a digital generation of soldiers accustomed to Napstering music, it's no technology leap at all and not much of an ethical step to burn a platter of soft-core prison porn and pass it around. This is the world's most technologically-enabled fighting force, and not just militarily. [...] What does this mean for journalism? First, it converts all camera-toting participants of an event into potential irrefutable witnesses and therefore sources. Second, these witnesses also have the capability to become citizen reporters (who may or may not attempt to "report" journalistically and instead prefer to "show" a version of an event from their own viewpoint). Third, it further dilutes the traditional role of mainstream journalists as the primary providers of news. As more citizens become not only subjects and sources but also reporters, professional journalists are increasingly disintermediated. The deflation of high technology into everyday tools usable by anyone redefines journalism's core function (reporting what happened) from the practice of an elite few to a possibility for many. The linear nature of news - flowing from source to journalist to public - is disrupted. Journalists must adapt. Explanation and context and depth become more important as the basic "what happened" becomes more commoditized. Official sources - government and corporate authorities - become devalued as they grow warier of and less honest toward the news media; unofficial sources (prison guards, cargo loaders) increase in value. Assertion loses out to proof and the standard of fact is raised. Ironically, what much of this means is that in a digital world, the human source, the one man or the one woman who was there, who saw, who heard, who documented, trumps all else."
[First Draft by Tim Porter]

Independent Weblogs From Iraq

Digital cameras, laptops, e-mail and weblogs make it easy for independent journalists or individual soldiers to publish personal reports to the world. Of the many independent weblogs originating from English-speaking journalists and soldiers in Iraq, these are among the best that feature photography. [Section by Gio Messner]

Christopher Allbritton: First Reader-Funded Journalist-Blogger
Allbritton is a former AP and New York Daily News reporter. Now he is the web's "first fully reader-funded journalist-blogger, making regular word and image posts to his weblog.
[Back to Iraq]

Kevin Sites: Combat Correspondent's Independent Weblog
Kevin Sites is a pioneering, multi-media journalist who often works as a one-man unit, using portable, digital technology to report, write, edit and transmit his stories from conflict areas around the world. He is currently on assignment for NBC News in Iraq, but this blog presents his independent reporting.
[Kevin Sites] [Photoessay: Women and Children of Albo Eatha]

Baghdad Journal
Students from the Berkeley School of Journalism spend a month in Iraq to work on freelance projects and see how life has been affected under what some call liberation and others, occupation.
[Baghdad Journal]

Pictures from the 101st Airborne: Cpl. Debbie Prieve
"If you really want to know the complete picture of what is going on in Iraq, don't trust the media to tell you. They're against the war and against the President who is waging it. Get online and find the hundreds of blogs and photo websites being posted by Americans serving in the war and by Iraqis whose country is the central battleground."
[Link—via Phototalk]

Boots on the Ground: Daily Life in Baghdad From US Soldier
[Boots on the Ground]

Kev Belcher: Operation Telic / Operation Iraqi Freedom
A Reservist's tour of duty in support of UK forces in Kuwait and Iraq from March 4th to June 26th 2003.
[Link]

Bloggers4Freedom Has Links to First-person Accounts from Iraq
[Bloggers4Freedom]