Category Archives: journalism

Lessons from Italy’s Mafia Republic

Posted on June 5, 2013 by samiraahmed

Every weekend when I was 10 years old, I had to write an English composition for homework. It was 1978 and drawing on the daily news on my TV screen for source material I wrote one  imagining I was the … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Crime and Justice, History, journalism, Politics, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 23 Comments

But it’s news… Some questions about Woolwich coverage

Posted on May 23, 2013 by samiraahmed

 I’ll be discussing questions about BBC TV’s news coverage of the horrific Woolwich street murder of a young soldier on Newswatch with the head of the BBC Newsroom, Mary Hockaday on Friday May 24th. This blog post lays out some … Continue reading →

Posted in Crime and Justice, journalism, Media, TV, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 47 Comments

This England

Posted on March 9, 2013 by samiraahmed

I often talk to journalism students about the under-appreciated joys of great news in brief writing. So I wanted to share this one, that I ripped from the bottom right hand corner of a page of Friday’s London Metro newspaper. … Continue reading →

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Hacks on Film: Essential viewing and reading

Posted on October 3, 2012 by samiraahmed

This is an updated version of an article I first wrote for The Spectator blog, that formed the basis of a lecture to journalism students at Kingston University in October. It has links to scripts, films and articles about all … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, History, journalism, Media, Politics, TV, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Troublesome slags: What Rochdale reveals about our attitudes to teenage girls

Posted on September 27, 2012 by samiraahmed

Heywood, Rochdale (Photo by Peter Byrne/PA) A provisional multi agency report into the scale of sexual abuse of young girls in Rochdale published today admitted there were issues about the legitimate sexual “consent” of 13 year old girls that the … Continue reading →

Posted in Children, Crime and Justice, journalism, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Politics of Spin: Beware the bland bomb

Posted on September 23, 2012 by samiraahmed

Image copyright & courtesy of www.barrydbulsara.com “I’m not sure it says government is crap,” said Armando Iannucci recently, of his political satire The Thick of It. “I think it says the people in government are crap.” Nowadays politicians and their … Continue reading →

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BBC Bush: The House at the Centre of the Globe

Posted on July 12, 2012 by samiraahmed

To mark the closing of BBC’s Bush House, which sends out its final broadcast today, this is an updated memoir of growing up there in the 70s. Bush House, Aldwych: The centre of the universe My mother, Lalita Ahmed, used to freelance … Continue reading →

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Mea culpa: But only after making the money

Posted on May 9, 2012 by samiraahmed

Sir Mervyn King’s recent admisson that he should have been “shouting from the rooftops” about the dangers of the banking system before the 2008 crash seems to add to my theory, written for The Big Issue about the number of … Continue reading →

Posted in Business/Economics, Crime and Justice, Culture, journalism, Media, Politics, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Missing Angle on the Arab Spring: The Soviet Era dissident’s tale

Posted on March 20, 2012 by samiraahmed

I met renowned Polish Jewish journalist, Konstanty Gebert, from Gazeta Wyborcza at an EU conference for Arab journalists last year. His family had mostly died in the Warsaw Ghetto, his mother survived to take up arms with the Communists and … Continue reading →

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Don’t Go There, Lady

Posted on March 13, 2012 by samiraahmed

I wrote to journalist and future doctor Lucy Mathen as a child when she presented Newsround. More than 30 years later we met. I wrote a feature about it for The Guardian. And as a result of learning about how … Continue reading →

Posted in Children, journalism, Politics, Radio, Science, Travel, Uncategorized, War | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment