Frontline Club started in London, as a media club with a strong emphasis on conflict reporting, supporting independent journalism and encouraging both freedom of the press and freedom of expression worldwide. Believe it or not, the Frontline Club was founded by surviving members of Frontline News TV, a cooperative of freelance cameramen formed during the chaos of the Romanian revolution in 1989.
Raluca Feher is the one who brought to Romania this debating club, arguing in her demand that “Romanian press is dying and journalism practice is of poor quality. The Romanian people no longer trust mass media, and the information it provides is highly manipulative, used by tv broadcasters for political interests”, information available on her own blog.
The media club has already started their activities on February 18, in the presence of the founder, journalist Vaughan Smith, who declared in an interview for Dilema Veche that in Romania are very competent young journalists, who aren’t very well-known, but they can use Frontline platform to become worldwide famous.
Last night, on February 26, the media club presented a documentary movie about photographer Don McCullin, followed by a Q&A session with director Jacqui Morris, moderated by Romanian TV-journalist specialized in war zone reporting Adelin Petrisor and Chief Photography of Reuters Romania, Radu Sigheti.
Some of the conclusions of the night were built upon McCullin photographic technique, mentioning especially the ethics of the photojournalism and the importance of the editor in a news press. Moreover, there were debated the problems that a war zone reporting journalist greet, such as kidnaping or the lack of insurance, which sometimes is provided by the press agency, as Reuters does for its correspondents.
You can follow Frontline Club Bucharest events on their Facebook official page, available here.
Oana Vasiliu