Backpack Conflict Journo

[ShanghaiedStampede]

Alright, so I'm graduating in 5 months with a shiny journalism degree, and want to go somewhere fun. I'm very interested in convergent journalism, mixing video, photos and text. None of my faculty seem to have any advice as to where to start.

Where is a nice, soft war to cover? I want to build experience, build credentials, and get some great stories. Please help. I really want to pack up my camera, other BOB shit, and get on a plane.

[Kurt]

Soft war? Go to Haiti.

No one ever checks out Isle de Tortuga but that is where the last rebel army of Guy,....shit...forgot his name..started.

The war in Haiti is soft but Haiti itself is not. (except for Petionville...that is nice)

[rickshaw92]

Where is a nice, soft war to cover?

Theres a few housing estates in London. We can do up the rickshaw with some kevlar plating and be on our way!

[vagabond]

Where is a nice, soft war to cover? I want to build experience, build credentials, and get some great stories. Please help. I really want to pack up my camera, other BOB shit, and get on a plane.

The class warfare in your own backyard. You don't need bullets for a war.

I'm very interested in convergent journalism, mixing video, photos and text.

Is that what blogging is called these days?

Please help. I really want to pack up my camera, other BOB shit, and get on a plane.

Do it. Find something you're interested in, go there, and find the stories. Either try and track what you tend to read about daily foreign affairs-wise or go to your local bookstore to the travel section and see what books you pick up and browse.

[Douchebag]

Go back to college and get a real degree which will get you into and make you a valuable asset in warzones. Medicine/ engineering (sanitation) is a good start.

Rickshaw made a good point. Spend a year in the roughest neighborhood you can find. That will be the best grounding for entry into a soft warzone. Go out, have wacked out, disease ridden, violent people try to stab, glass, shoot, kick and punch you day after day for at least a year. Get used to being shit scared all the time. Get used to looking over your shoulder all the time. Get used to being beaten up on a regular basis and enjoy tasting your own blood, after your teeth have been knocked out of your head. Learn to read the violent signs.

It will hurt and hurt a lot, but warzones are (sorry to have point this out to you) unpleasant places where bad things happen and some day they will happen to you. It is not a disney adventure. Caliban has probably seen more action than the entire BFC put together times 100 and taken more punches than Tyson, bare knuckle.

Now, go back and ask your professor of journalism what his blood tastes like.

[denise]

what is this "other BOB shit" of which he speaks?

[Douchebag]

what is this "other BOB shit" of which he speaks?

It's faggot slang for Beaten On Buttocks. Very popular with the rough riders.

[denise]

even without being able to see your avatar, i'd recognize you anywhere, eyeball.

so...how's tricks?

[Dr. V]

One of the best threads which rehashes this whole discussion from a variety of angles is the 'Need Advice' thread

http://www.cafe.comebackalive.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=30815&hilit=need+advice -

just to save everybody repeating themselves you might want to check it out.

[Douchebag]

even without being able to see your avatar, i'd recognize you anywhere, eyeball.

so...how's tricks?

Hello porch climber. Are you still here?

[vagabond]

Thanks for relinking that vlindsey. That's where I stole my part about going to the bookstore from Jumper:

Another idea about finding your interest is to go into a Barnes and Noble bookstore and keep a mental record of everything that you read. Your passions are usually the things that you are drawn too in that bookstore. Hang out in the magazine section, then go to the books section, or just hang out in the cafe and drink coffee and people watch. But if you do this a couple of times, and spend a whole day in Barnes and Noble every time(or try to), then you will start to see a pattern of what you are drawn too.

Which I think is good advice for anyone who's weighing options.

[denise]

even without being able to see your avatar, i'd recognize you anywhere, eyeball.

so...how's tricks?

Hello porch climber. Are you still here?

upward and onward, new old same old, you know who what where when and why it is.

and sometimes how.

[lightstalker]

None of my faculty seem to have any advice as to where to start

??..no internships or junior positions available to you..?

Maybe that's because you have just graduated into an professional industry that is on the precipice of a slow decline into extinction.

Try and get a job with your local newspaper. You might be writing stories about firemen rescuing cats from tree's for a while, but at least you get experience.
If you want to do the war-zone gig, pack your bags and head for Kabul. Foreign journo's hang out in bars, swimming pools, and hotel lobbies. You can accumulate contacts and go from there. If you're worried about getting killed or kidnapped, you may as well get used it early if you want to be a war journalist.You can only learn.

But here's the thing: the news corps, magazines and newspaper's, don't have the budget to be sending foreign journo's on highly expensive war zone junkets, to get the latest news splash from kaboomistan for the front page of the daily bugle anymore. Those days are gone, although there are a few guys higher up the pecking order that still do it. Don't expect to get paid a lot to get shot at either. There is a reason why the world's media now almost exclusively use local's as a means to get the story - pay them peanuts and not have to worry about insurance if they get blown up.

My advice?..move to Las Vegas and join the all male burlesque show at the hooter's casino hotel. You will make a lot more money, you will have your cock sucked by rich married women on a regular basis, and you wont have to worry about dying for nothing.

[svizzerams]

Read: Shutterbabe by Deborah Copaken Kogan

http://www.amazon.com/Shutterbabe-Adven ... 101&sr=8-1

[media]

OK as a journalist on this board who has covered events wars and drama around the world. I say start off somewhere like Haiti, US/Mex border, Jarkata, or even Spain. Lots of good stuff to be found from terrorism, poverty, human and drug smuggling, piracy, and good ole violence. Dont try to be a Kevin Sites right out the door. Also with a self assignment think outside the box and let the others chase the obvious stories. Find one with little western media coverage or find a nitch in something that hasnt been done. Stand out, find a topic and be detailed in your coverage of that topic.