Photo by Irfaan

Photo by Irfaan

I’ve had a look on the BBC Your Story flickr group and we’ve had a lot of new additions to the pool.

These include the above photo by Irfaan. See more of his photos here.

This photo is a great illustration to some of the words of Shahdi Al Kashif, the BBC’s Arabic Correspondent who was inside Gaza when the last offensive happened. He was speaking here at Bush House about his experiences.

He really illustrated some of the important differences between professional and citizen journalism – of which there are many.  He said that as a journalist, as everyone runs away from the explosion, he must run towards it as there was no such thing as “I’m afraid”.

The priority was to find out what was happening, despite the fact that people and children were screaming around him.  He had to separate his personal feelings and go to see exactly what was being targeted and to be exacting in his information.

On the BBC’s decision over the DEC Gaza Appeal, he said there was a protest outside the bureau in Gaza.  Despite a recommendation to evacuate, Shahdi said that he thought it was better to face people to explain how the BBC had been reporting among them for a long time this.