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Was Amanda Lindhout a journalist?

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Thu, 2009-11-26 22:06

#1

Stormcrest

Was Amanda Lindhout a journalist?

Hello Rabble....

I have come looking for some help...

This relates to the Amanda Lindhout story...the woman released yesterday from captivity in Somalia.

I have been following the story the last few days.

I have read/heard some troubling things.

- she was told not to go to Somalia, by who not sure (source:CBC Radio news)

- she was not trained to work in war zones or dangerous locations (source:CBC radio news)

- she may not have formal journalism credentials or schooling

Can anyone help me out here? Was she contracted to a new organization before going oversees? Where did she go to school for journalism? Who was her employer?(did they send her there?) Would she have been registered as a foreign corespondent with any Canadian or international organization? Has anyone read any of her reportage?

I have been trying to find this and have had no luck....

Any info?

Thanks

Thu, 2009-11-26 22:41

#2

Timebandit Timebandit's picture

Timebandit's picture

Hmm. Don't know, but the Canadian Association of Journalists was sending around a petition to members in the last month lobbying for help to gain her release. I assumed she had a connection with them.

Thu, 2009-11-26 22:46

#3

Stormcrest

Quick update...the news articles are now referring to her as a freelance journalist.

Thu, 2009-11-26 22:58

#4

peterjcassidy peterjcassidy's picture

peterjcassidy's picture

Lindhout has reported from war zones in Africa, Iraq, and Afghanistan. She has worked for Iraq's Press TV [3] and has reported for Alberta's Red Deer Advocate newspaper. Lindhout traveled to Mogadishu, Somalia on August 20 to report on the famine and violence refugees face in Sudan for French television station France 24.[4][5]

http://www.google.com/search?q=amanda lindhout

Thu, 2009-11-26 23:29

#5

Stormcrest

Hey...found a bit more on her from the National Post.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/posted/archive/2008/08/23/the-work-of-kidnapped-journalist-amanda-lindhout.aspx

The reason I was asking is that there are a lot of derisive comments on the feed back sections in the news outlets suggesting that she was negligent in going to the locations she was going to. Put herself in great danger. 'That she deserved it.'

I do not know how freelance journalism works. But it appeared to me; from what perhaps may have been my uninformed and ignorant perspective, that she put herself in great danger.

What are the responsibilities of freelance journalists towards their safety? How does that differ from journalists working for the CBC for example?

Thu, 2009-11-26 23:41

#6

Stormcrest

youtube news report

unknown youtube posting of amanda

Fri, 2009-11-27 01:48

#7

peterjcassidy peterjcassidy's picture

peterjcassidy's picture

and you will know reveal that you have learned she is a KGB Mossad CIA CSIS agent.

Fri, 2009-11-27 01:53

#8

Timebandit Timebandit's picture

Timebandit's picture

Stormcrest wrote:

Hey...found a bit more on her from the National Post.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/posted/archive/2008/08/23/the-work-of-kidnapped-journalist-amanda-lindhout.aspx

The reason I was asking is that there are a lot of derisive comments on the feed back sections in the news outlets suggesting that she was negligent in going to the locations she was going to. Put herself in great danger. 'That she deserved it.'

I do not know how freelance journalism works. But it appeared to me; from what perhaps may have been my uninformed and ignorant perspective, that she put herself in great danger.

What are the responsibilities of freelance journalists towards their safety? How does that differ from journalists working for the CBC for example?

Well, the big difference is that one is an employee of CBC and the other isn't... That as an employee of CBC, she would have been attached to a new bureau of some sort with the infrastructure and supports that the employer would provide via a union contract.

Do freelancers have obligations as far as insurance? I don't know. I know that when I make a documentary I am required by my funders and licensers to have a certain level of insurance. But only as part of a contractual agreement.

Fri, 2009-11-27 08:46

#9

Ghislaine

I don't think she was responsible for what happened to her and she definitely didn't deserve it. That said, I am certainly not going to Sudan or Somalia any time soon and I the reasons are obvious to anyone remotely familiar with current events. She knew it was dangerous, but she seems to have liked risky journalism based on the locales she chose to work from. I don't think local reporting for the Red Deer Advocate was going to cut it for her - although she may have a different perspective now. I am glad she has been released - apparently a large ransom was paid partly by her parents.

Fri, 2009-11-27 09:09

autoworker autoworker's picture

autoworker's picture

It seems that Canada's Foreign Affairs ministry did little or nothing to help secure her release. Has anyone heard otherwise?

Fri, 2009-11-27 09:39

skdadl

Stormcrest wrote:

I do not know how freelance journalism works. But it appeared to me; from what perhaps may have been my uninformed and ignorant perspective, that she put herself in great danger.

What are the responsibilities of freelance journalists towards their safety? How does that differ from journalists working for the CBC for example?

Well, freelancers are of all sorts. We owe a great deal to the good ones, though, especially in an age of hyperconsolidation in the corporate media and a management shift to emphasis on entertainment.

The North American media began closing down their foreign bureaus in the late eighties, early nineties, and are really not competent to be doing steady intelligent coverage of most of the rest of the world. We all saw what happened to, eg, mainstream US coverage of both Iraq invasions -- most journalists "embedded" with the troops, their access tightly controlled by the Pentagon, many of them turning into shills for Dubya's war. Most of the best coverage of the ME and Central Asia is coming either from long-established freelancers or from British and other European sources whose journalists, again, tend to have lived in the places they report on for long periods.

Yes, it's risky work, even when you know the place and the people and are savvy about how to behave. But if a lot of freelancers don't head off to cover stories in depth and with independent views, where are we going to get our early-warning signs, anything but sexy crisis coverage? Not from the US networks, for sure. I'll give the Grope and Flail a bit of credit for still supporting some foreign correspondents, and the CBC too, but they could and should be a whole lot better.

Many -- most? -- photojournalists are freelancers. Their work can be extremely dangerous, but it is also often invaluable.

Professional journalists all know these things, which is why their unions/associations will usually come to the aid of a freelancer in distress.

Fri, 2009-11-27 09:41

Ghislaine

autoworker wrote:

It seems that Canada's Foreign Affairs ministry did little or nothing to help secure her release.

Should they have? If they are issuing warnings stating not to travel to certain places due to danger, wouldn't that remove their liabilityY

Fri, 2009-11-27 10:14

autoworker autoworker's picture

autoworker's picture

Ghislaine wrote:

autoworker wrote:

It seems that Canada's Foreign Affairs ministry did little or nothing to help secure her release.

Should they have? If they are issuing warnings stating not to travel to certain places due to danger, wouldn't that remove their liabilityY

Your point is well taken about the travel advisory, and she should have known of the risks involved. But, while I don't think that the government is liable in any way, I do believe that it has an obligation to concern itself with the disposition of its citizens, regardless of the circumstances that brought it to their attention. It is true that many countries let their nationals fend for themselves when abroad. I believed, perhaps naively, that Canada wasn't amongst them.

Fri, 2009-11-27 18:10

Kanada2America

To answer the original question:

No. I don't believe she was a trained journalist. She was doing the 1980's, 1990's version of Christian Amanpour - but without a major news network behind her.

The canadian news organizations have made her into a martyr because it's a "sexy" story for them. Gets ratings and reinforces stereotypes: pretty white reporter in peril at the hands of evil desperados in a Third World country with no law.

That's how shallow tv really is.

Lindhout went to a war zone as a freelancer. That takes some money and her family was and is reasonably well off. I'm not saying they were rich, but they weren't poor either. This was her dream and she followed it.

She thought having a canadian passport was going to be a shield. Or that having a title of "journalist" would act as a shield for her. Nope.

She forgot some basic rules about being in Africa as a white person, as did her companion from Australia. You stand out like a sore thumb, you come from rich industrialized countries - what do you think the Somalis are going to do once you are in lawless territory?

But all that aside - she didn't deserve what happened to her. I'm glad she is safe and will live to reflect on her decisions. What's next for her? I am sure she will get offers from CTV or Sun Media for a job. Maybe a book too.

Kanada2America

Fri, 2009-11-27 18:14

Kanada2America

And just to add. I call it right here: She'll be on Canada AM and on CBC or Global morning shows within three weeks. At least before Christmas as news producers at canada's major networks desperately scramble to get her recollections of life in captivity and how she was thinking of canada all the time.

Fri, 2009-11-27 18:27

skdadl

Wow. No wonder the North American media are so crappy.

Their audience demands nothing of them but that their reporters should have corporate credentials. Amanpour must be ok because she has a network behind her, but those DFH freelancers who are risking their necks to report independently -- for heaven's sake, people! -- couldn't that make our noble government liable for something? It might cost us money to find out the truth from someone who doesn't have a seal of approval from the U.S. State Department or our own beloved DFAIT? A daring reporter might become famous for actually being, y'know, daring?

Heaven forfend. You're getting the media you deserve.

Fri, 2009-11-27 19:18

Frustrated Mess Frustrated Mess's picture

Frustrated Mess's picture

Stormcrest wrote:

The reason I was asking is that there are a lot of derisive comments on the feed back sections in the news outlets suggesting that she was negligent in going to the locations she was going to. Put herself in great danger. 'That she deserved it.'

Stop reading the comments on MSM news sites. If you continue, you will wind up with a warped perspective of the Canadian Internet public as absolute morons and semi-literates.

Fri, 2009-11-27 20:29

remind

remind's picture

Stormcrest wrote:
'That she deserved it.'

That is pure outright misogyny when you read something like that, as that is what sexist, at best, men say about everything that befalls/they do to a woman....

Fri, 2009-11-27 21:05

Eastwinds

I'm just happy Amanda wasn't shot or beheaded by the "shiftas". I'm happy she is safe and happy for her family. Personally, I wouldn't make a trip to Somalia but I won't say she deserved what she got like some other folks on other sites. I'm sure she knows within herself that Somalia was not a wise choice for travel.

Fri, 2009-11-27 21:56

Frustrated Mess Frustrated Mess's picture

Frustrated Mess's picture

She was a journalist. That's what journalists do. Is the so-called Highway of Heroes dedicated to people who shoulda known better than to enlist? The world is filled with ignorant assholes. Try not to be one.

Sat, 2009-11-28 17:37

Kanada2America

Well what is her background then? You trust Amanda Lindhout because you believe that she's better trained then the "corporate" reporters? When I was referring to Amanpour - I was talking about the good years at CNN when Ted Turner actually had a stake in running it. Not the Time-Warner years and forward from that.

You don't think the CBC has an agenda?

Amanpour's stories from Bosnia and other parts of the world reached millions and she went behind the lines. She didn't embed herself with anybody. Now of course, it's different.

But these arguments are hypocritical anyway. Lindhout filed her stories to "corporate" media outlets, so how is she any different than the rest of them? Her stories, would have been edited. She would have been taking direction from a producer somewhere who told her what to look for, what angle etc.

Folks, she may have been out there on her own to a certain extent, but she had people she answered to at media outlets who paid her per story. Those media outlets are not going to pay for something they don't like. So again - how much better is she compared to corporatized reporting? I just don't see any credentials here with Lindhout.

If you want to believe Lindhout over a trained journalist, then you should have your next heart operation by a freelancer too.

Kanada2America

Sat, 2009-11-28 18:46

skdadl

Of course freelancers are hoping to sell their stuff to some commercial outlet or other. I mean, how much more self-evident can things be?

They differ, especially in the TV biz, from most, almost all network reporters by virtue of the fact that they are out there getting the story -- they run their own operation; they decide how deep they're going; they aren't answering to the entertainment division in beautiful downtown Burbank (believe me: the regular guys you see fronting NBC News are).

And in fact those jerks at the entertainment division in beautiful downtown Burbank are glad the freelancers are out there -- they want them out there doing the work, absorbing the overheads, risking their necks, none of which the networks want to absorb any longer, and haven't for twenty years. So are those executives just pleased as punch when a freelancer comes to them with a scoop or some killer original footage? Of course they are. They invest very little; they pay only for the winning stuff, none of the R&D.

Many network people in fact started their careers as freelancers. That's one way to get noticed in a very tough biz. But many of them don't want to work for the blenderizers, and instead spend their whole careers out there on the front lines. As I said before, photojournalists especially operate that way.

Your smart-mouth closing parallel with surgeons (who are also self-employed) is no parallel at all, although it is smart-mouth. You're not making the most basic logical connections. Who doesn't need to get paid for her work? Hello?

Sat, 2009-11-28 19:26

Kanada2America

I think you are getting angry with me now, because I just made a simple counterpoint to your over-simplified version of how the media works.

Let us go back to basics. Are you a trained journalist? Have you freelanced for a major network? Have you been in a newsroom of any kind? Were you even born or raised in a foreign country or continent like Africa? How well do you know that part of Africa?

Let's start there.

Sat, 2009-11-28 19:32

skdadl

People are not allowed to remain pseudonymous on babble any longer? When did that start? I don't owe you my CV, although I write from forty years' experience of a lot of things connected with the biz, as a number of people here know. And if you'd cool off and think through the logic of the situation and the corporate business (which is what news is), you'd be able to put the story together without me.

Sheesh. Next thing you know, we'll be taking attendance.

Sat, 2009-11-28 19:37

N.Beltov

N.Beltov's picture

Well it's just a way to change the subject a little. And we all do that when we get a thrashing in an argument, eh?

Sat, 2009-11-28 19:46

Kanada2America

Actually the reason Rabble/Babble works is that people with a lot of background and qualifications choose to contribute. Don't always agree with the opinions, but just having your ideas debated does not amount to, "taking attendance".

I too, come from a background in the media, hence my comments. I will gladly post my background without revealing anything that would breach my privacy or security. Why are you so threatened?

I didn't ask for your home address now did I?

Sat, 2009-11-28 21:16

Frustrated Mess Frustrated Mess's picture

Frustrated Mess's picture

A journalist is a person who reports news. A "trained journalist" is someone schooled in a style of writing. A "trained journalist" is not trained to avoid being kidnapped by criminal gangs in places where news is happening. Nor are they trained to keep from being blown to bits by American or Israeli shells while reporting from well marked locations and hotels. Nor are they trained for the grusomeness of humanity's inhumanity.

Are you trained to avoid being a victim of crime on the street? Do you go outside?

The weasels and morons and useless twerps, and I'm being kind, who make such comments on websites and blogs wouldn't know courage if it slapped them sharply across the face. You know what courage is? Courage is all those reporters who risk their lives to get us the real story, unembeded and uncensored. They do it for no reason other than they are driven by some insane need to tell the world. They have courage and courage is a trait sadly lacking among and within the simpering pools of the blogosphere.

Sat, 2009-11-28 21:51

saganisking

you're attacks on Lindhout smell like something I can't quite put my finger on CanvsUSA - was George Orwell a "professional" journalist ? - thank god no - he was a policeman who wanted to be a writer so he became one - he wanted to see how things really were in order to write truthfully about them so he went and experienced what he would write about - whether living with the poorest in Northern England or going to Spain during the Civil war to not only report on the events there but even to fight against the facists - his uncomprimising intellectual honesty was so that he would even hold his and his comrades views and actions to the same standard that he judged the people on the opposite side of the political spectrum - his allegiance was to the truth only.

Was Lindout a Journalist? She went there to try and learn some truth and tell people about it - so yeah.

Mon, 2009-11-30 03:41

Kanada2America

Oh I don't doubt Lindhout's courage or her desire to bring us a story from Somalia and as I have said - glad she made it, hopefully in time to get home for xmas with family and friends. But remember she knew that this was a dangerous country going in and many western governments had already told their citizens not be anywhere near the region.

Was she reporting something that already hasn't been reported on? Somalia has been at various times, in the headlines quite extensively, ie. the refugee situation, factional fighting, the flow of arms and drugs etc.

What was Lindhout going to tell us that we didn't already know?

Kanada2America