Migration, climate change, terrorism…Geneva’s 14th International Film Festival
The issues are all too painfully familiar, but this year’s Geneva International Film and Human Rights Festival (FIFDH), (14th edition from 4-13 March, 2016), will be placing particular focus on migration, refugees, rape and...
HUMAN – Seven billion people tell their story
Launched simultaneously last September at the United Nations in New York and the Venice Biennale Film Festival, HUMAN is based on 2,000 filmed interviews recorded over three years around the world. It is an...
Ronnie Koven: International press freedom community loses doyen
Ronald Koven, a distinguished journalist who became a defender of a free press around the world, died on Friday, Oct. 30 in Paris of complications following a long battle with cancer. He was 80....
Ronnie Koven: International press freedom community loses doyen
Ronald Koven, a distinguished journalist who became a defender of a free press around the world, died on Friday, Oct. 30 in Paris of complications following a long battle with cancer. He was 80....
The European Broadcasting Union’s Mini-FIFA
The FIFA corruption scandal may be growing steadily worse, but yet another Swiss-based organization may not be far behind. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which manages the Eurovision Song Contest, has come up with...
Battling the wrong giants: Security snoopers vs Wikileaks
Which is more important for media in society? Security snoopers or Wikileaks? Or is it the collapse of traditional business models with the rise of social media? Swiss journalists came together at the Fourth Journalistic...
Battling the wrong giants: Security snoopers vs Wikileaks
Which is more important for media in society? Security snoopers or Wikileaks? Or is it the collapse of traditional business models with the rise of social media? Swiss journalists came together at the Fourth Journalistic...
Helping to ‘fix’ global media coverage
World Fixer is a new company which connects employers and trusted fixers or facilitators around the world. Its 2,000 members are already working with media outlets around the world to improve their coverage of...
Internews: The power of media and information
While billions of dollars are spent annually by the United States and other western countries on military, but also humanitarian and development support, there is insufficient backing for media as one of the most...
Jeff Danziger on Europe’s Backyard War
Jeff Danziger is a US-based cartoonist, author and contributor to The Essential Edge. For his cartoons and books, please see: http://www.danzigercartoons.com/
Putin's Solution
cartoon
Williams and O’Reilly: Not the only truth-fudging in the name of journalism
The recent incidents of two leading American TV personalities claiming to have covered specific events, when they had not, only come across as yet more nails in the journalistic coffins of those still seeking...
Better Mapping for Better Journalism
Willie Shubert of the Washington DC-based New Security Beat explores new visual tools for improving environmental journalism.
Nearly every local story has a global context. This is especially true when it comes to the environment, and there...
Stepping over the line
In 1979, I happened to run across Georges Bernier, the creator of the bitingly satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo. The motto was “Bête et Méchant,” which translates roughly as “stupid and nasty.” It had started in 1960...
Why the Swiss need to value their foreigners
The following piece by Swiss-American journalist and author Edward Girardet was initially written for Swissinfo, a news website funded by the Swiss Foreign Ministry and the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation. It was accepted and edited...
Afghanistan – What went wrong?
The following essay by Geneva-based journalist and author Edward Girardet was published by the Cairo Review of Global Affairs in October, 2014. Girardet is also co-editor of the 4th fully revised Essential Field Guide...
The Essential Edge Guide to Aid Speak – Part I
The following is to help ordinary human beings understand the impressive but often incomprehensible-sounding terminology of the international aid community. We thank all those for their contributions and look forward to more.
Accountable: Key buzzword....
Modern assassins, murder and social media
Steven Sotloff’s murder and decapitation is a tragedy in itself, but it also marks a turning point both for journalism and the communications strategy for the world's most murderous insurgencies. Terrorists these days are...
What ever happened to real foreign reporting?
The brutal murder in the name of Islam of American reporter James Foley by a British Jihadist outlines – once again - the extreme dangers journalists, many of them freelance, now face when trying...
Time to focus on the people behind the numbers
This piece is contributed by Nick van Praag, a humanitarian specialist and director of Keystone's Ground Truth programme.
A slew of statistics released this week by UNHCR points to a rising tide of human misery as the...
The Silver Fox Remembered
With the death of former Soviet Foreign Minister and Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze earlier this month, journalist and writer Thomas Goltz remembers.
Livingston, Montana -- Eduard Shevardnadze and I bonded during the siege and fall...
Gérer internet… sans les médias? (Manning the internet…without media?)
The following article by Essential Edge French-language editor, Daniel Wermus, explores the role of the internet - and journalism.
En 2003 et 2005, le Sommet mondial sur la société de l’information (SMSI) donnait l’élan aux...
Frontline Earth: Maidan, Taksim, Tahrir – Revolution 2.0
The following piece in French is by Essential Edge French editor Daniel Wermus.
Geneva -- Chaque bouleversement technologique a, dans l’histoire, produit un bouleversement social. L’imprimerie a déclenché la Réforme. La révolution industrielle, le mouvement...
The Killing of a journalist – Plus statement of the AFPA
By Edward Girardet. (Followed by an open letter of the Afghanistan Foreign Press Association (AFPA).
The brazen assassination of veteran British-Swedish radio journalist Nils Horner by unknown assailants in the streets of Kabul earlier this...
The Essential Edge – Editors, writers and media consultants
The Essential Edge is part of Crosslines Essential Media (UK) Ltd and is based out of Geneva, Switzerland, London, United Kingdom, and New York, USA. We are all editors, journalists and media consultants working in...
Life after Guantanamo prison
The following piece on Afghans incarcerated -- often with little or no evidence - by the Americans in Guantanamo by Dawood Azam was published on the BBC World website. See link.
Kabul -- Some 220...
Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, North Africa and the role of quality media
Since starting out as a foreign correspondent during the late 1970s in Paris, Swiss-American writer and journalist Edward Girardet would often make a point of coming to Geneva to report on peace talks, wars...
The PCDN Network – More than just information
For anyone - UN or NGO aid worker, policy analyst, researcher, journalist, donor, private sector - serious about being effective, the Peace and Collaborative Development Network (PCDN) is more than just an information tool,...
Switzerland’s Immigration Vote: Nationalism, racism or fear.
A version of this was first published by Le News, the free English-language weekly for the Lake Geneva region. This includes the cartoon by award-winning American artist Jeff Danziger - excellent cartoons on his website...
World Press Photo of the Year 2013: John Stanmeyer
This year's World Press Photo of the Year 2013 was won by American Photographer John Stanmeyer of the VII agency for National Geographic.
John's extraordinary photograph shows African migrants on the shore of Djibouti city at...
In Nepal’s Himalayas, the uphill battle is against plastic
Letter from Katamandu
Journalist Donatella Lorch has sent us this dispatch from Nepal.
As any tour company will tell you, Nepal is the land of the Gods. It is the birthplace of Buddha and home to...
The newsonomics of measuring the real impact of news
Ken Doctor of The Nieman Journalism Lab explores whether one can raise more money for the news by harnessing the power of social sharing — and making the impact of journalism a little more...
