ABOUT

This is a site about the books and other writing by James Rodgers, author of Assignment Moscow: Reporting on Russia From Lenin to Putin (new edition 2023; first published July 2020); Headlines from the Holy Land (2015 and 2017); No Road Home: Fighting for Land and Faith in Gaza (2013); Reporting Conflict (2012). My work looks at how stories of international affairs, especially armed conflict, are told to the world.

BIOGRAPHY

I am an author and journalist. During two decades of covering international news, I reported on the end of the Soviet Union; the wars in Chechnya; the coming to power of Vladimir Putin; 9/11; the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the 2003 war in Iraq; Russia’s war with Georgia in 2008. I completed correspondent postings for the BBC in Moscow, Brussels, and Gaza. I now teach in the Journalism Department at City, University of London.

Reporting from Russia: live event at the Frontline Club, London, January 20th 2023

St Basil’s Cathedral and part of the Kremlin Wall, Moscow, March 2019. Image © James Rodgers

ON FRIDAY 20TH JANUARY AT 1900 I will be chairing a live discussion, ‘Reporting from Russia’, at the Frontline Club in London.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a war not only on a neighbouring country, but also a war on journalism. New laws rushed through the Russian parliament in the wake of the invasion mean that the practice of independent journalism in Russia is now in effect illegal: even calling the war a ‘war’—rather than the Kremlin’s preferred euphemism of ‘special military operation’—carries the threat of a lengthy jail term. Not surprisingly, many journalists, Russian and international, have felt forced to flee the country. In consequence, reporting from Russia is restricted in a way unknown since the end of the Cold War—just at a time when the world needs it more than ever.

To discuss the consequences for international understanding of Russia, James Rodgers, former BBC Moscow correspondent and the author of Assignment Moscow: Reporting on Russia from Lenin to Putin will be joined by Emma Burrows, news editor at ITV News, Marc Bennetts, Moscow correspondent in exile for The Times and Olga Ivshina, senior Russian correspondent at the BBC.

If you are in London, please come and join us. Tickets–including reduced prices for students–here Panel discussion: Reporting from Russia Tickets, Fri 20 Jan 2023 at 19:00 | Eventbrite .