Jake Hanrahan

Last updated

Jake Hanrahan
Jake Hanrahan 2023.png
Born (1990-01-23) 23 January 1990 (age 34)
NationalityBritish
Occupation(s)Journalist, filmmaker
EmployerH11, Popular Front
Website jakehanrahan.com

Jake Hanrahan (born 23 January 1990) is a British journalist and documentary filmmaker from the East Midlands. He reports on conflict, crime and politics. His work generally focuses on irregular warfare, organised crime and counter culture.

Contents

Hanrahan is known for his raw on-the-ground approach to reporting, gaining access to difficult stories and embedding into dangerous communities across the world.

Career

Hanrahan started his career as a self-taught freelance journalist. His work was published in The Guardian, Esquire, Rolling Stone and Wired. In 2014 Hanrahan was hired by VICE News, and later HBO. [1] [2] He worked as an on-screen reporter and producer, working in places such as Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Kurdistan and Palestine.

At VICE News, Hanrahan built a reputation as a journalist focussed on commonly unreported stories. He covered paramilitary factions, criminal gangs, environmental militancy, civil unrest and dark web networks. Hanrahan's best known work at VICE News is his embedded documentaries reporting on Kurdish rebel groups. He also reported on the war in Donbas, embedding with both the Ukrainian Ground Forces [3] and the separatist forces in Donetsk.

Hanrahan's work covering the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a Kurdish militant group, in southeast Turkey, landed him in prison. He was arrested in September 2015 in Turkey with his colleagues Philip Pendlebury and Mohammed Rasool, after the three embedded with the PKK's youth wing, the YDG-H, who were actively fighting the Turkish Armed Forces. Hanrahan spent two weeks in several maximum security prisons in Turkey, including Diyarbakır Prison and Adana F-type prison, before being deported back to the UK. [4] [5] [6] Hanrahan called on Turkey to release translator Mohammed Rasool, who remained in detention for over 100 days after Hanrahan's release. [7]

In 2017, Hanrahan left VICE News due to differences with the new management's editorial direction. He worked again as a freelance journalist, investigating the neo-Nazi militant group Atomwaffen Division. His reporting on this, as part of Documenting Hate, went on to win a duPont Award in 2020 for Frontline PBS and ProPublica. [8]

In 2018 Hanrahan founded the grassroots independent media platform Popular Front, [9] [10] which consists of a podcast, documentaries and a magazine. Popular Front has so far rejected all corporate investment and advertising. The company is funded solely via Patreon and merchandise sales. Popular Front has a youth audience with millions of followers across social media. In a 2022 Complex magazine profile on Popular Front, Hanrahan was named "one of the most important voices in war and conflict reporting". [11]

Popular Front is best known for its documentary work, showing under-reported war and conflict stories across the world. Their 2020 documentary Plastic Defence has amassed more than 2.9 million views on YouTube and attracted much media attention. [12] [13] The film shows unique access to the man who invented secret 3D printed firearms in Europe. In 2022, Hanrahan made a documentary embedded with anti-fascist Ukrainian football hooligans who'd volunteered to fight against the Russian invasion as part of the Territorial Defense Forces. This film was screened across Europe and America via various different football ultras organisations.

Projects

Hanrahan regularly releases new creative projects developed under his production studio H11. Hanrahan and his team produced the hit podcast series Q-Clearance: The Hunt for QAnon [14] in 2020 for iHeartRadio. They aimed to clarify the origins and nature of the political conspiracy theory QAnon. [15] The following year Hanrahan launched Megacorp , an investigative series exposing the malpractices of Amazon.

In 2021, Hanrahan's first book Gargoyle was published. It's a compilation of his written work, "collecting his on-the-ground reporting from all the wrong crowds." It sold over 3000 copies in the first months it was on sale.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kurdistan Workers' Party</span> Kurdish militant and political organization

The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK is a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement which historically operated throughout Kurdistan but is now primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq. Since 1984, the PKK has been involved in asymmetric warfare in the Kurdish–Turkish conflict. Although the PKK initially sought an independent Kurdish state, in the 1990s its official platform changed to seeking autonomy and increased political and cultural rights for Kurds within Turkey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abdullah Öcalan</span> Founder of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)

Abdullah Öcalan, also known as Apo, is a political prisoner and founding member of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Intelligence Organization</span> Intelligence agency of the Turkish government

The National Intelligence Organization, also known by its Turkish initials MIT or MİT, or colloquially as the Organization, is an intelligence agency of the Turkish government tasked with gathering information of national interests. It gathers information for the Presidency and the Armed Forces about the current and potential threats from inside and outside against all the elements that make up Turkey's integrity, constitutional order, existence, independence, security and national power and take precautions when necessary.

Kurdish Hezbollah or Hizbullah, is a Kurdish Sunni Islamist militant organization, active against Turkey, and the PKK. It is derogatorily known by its critics as Hizbulkontra, Hizbulvahşet, and Hizbulşeytan. They are also derogatorily known as Sofik, which is a diminutive of "Sofu", which means "devout" or "practicing".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Engel</span> American journalist and author

Richard Engel is an American journalist and author who is the chief foreign correspondent for NBC News. He was assigned to that position on April 18, 2008, after serving as the network's Middle East correspondent and Beirut bureau chief. Before joining NBC in May 2003, Engel reported on the start of the 2003 war in Iraq for ABC News as a freelance journalist in Baghdad.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Censorship in Turkey</span>

Censorship in Turkey is regulated by domestic and international legislation, the latter taking precedence over domestic law, according to Article 90 of the Constitution of Turkey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Howie Severino</span> Filipino broadcast journalist (born 1961)

Horacio "Howie" Gorospe Severino is a Filipino broadcast journalist, anchor, host, documentarist and podcaster who is currently working in GMA Network, as consultant of GMA Integrated News, editor-at-large of GMA News Online, and is best known for hosting GMA Public Affairs' documentary program i-Witness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of the Kurdistan Workers' Party insurgency (1978–2015)</span>

This is the timeline of the Turkish-Kurdish conflict. The Kurdish insurgency is an armed conflict between the Republic of Turkey and various Kurdish insurgent groups, which have demanded separation from Turkey to create an independent Kurdistan, or to have autonomy and greater political and cultural rights for Kurds in Turkey. The main rebel group is the Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK, which was founded on November 27, 1978, and started a full-scale insurgency on August 15, 1984, when it declared a Kurdish uprising. Apart from some extended ceasefires, the conflict has continued to the present day.

The Firat News Agency (ANF) is a Kurdish news agency that gathers and broadcasts news from the Middle East, broadly concerning Kurdish matters. The news agency has offices in Amsterdam and journalists around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simon Ostrovsky</span> American journalist (born 1981)

Simon Ostrovsky is an American journalist and documentary producer. He is best known for his coverage of the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2014 and 2015, when he was dispatched by VICE News to cover the events that unfolded in Ukraine as the country came into conflict with neighbouring Russia prior to and after Crimea's annexation by the latter. His other reports have covered Uzbek child labour, North Korean internment camps, the 2015 Europe migrant crisis, and the Arab–Israeli conflict.

Vice News is Vice Media's alternative current affairs channel, producing daily documentary essays and video through its website and YouTube channel. It promotes itself on its coverage of "under-reported stories". Vice News was created in December 2013 and is based in New York City, though it has bureaus worldwide.

Bellingcat is a Netherlands-based investigative journalism group that specialises in fact-checking and open-source intelligence (OSINT). It was founded by British citizen journalist and former blogger Eliot Higgins in July 2014. Bellingcat publishes the findings of both professional and citizen journalist investigations into war zones, human rights abuses, and the criminal underworld. The site's contributors also publish guides to their techniques, as well as case studies.

In late July 2015, the third phase of the Kurdish–Turkish conflict between various Kurdish insurgent groups and the Turkish government erupted, following a failed two and a half year-long peace process aimed at resolving the long-running conflict.

Mohammed Rasool Iraqi-Kurdish journalist

Mohammed Rasool is an Iraqi-Kurdish journalist who was held in a maximum security prison from 27 August 2015 to 5 January 2016. He was released on bail.

Kadri Gürsel is a Turkish journalist. He became prominent when the Turkish government imprisoned him for his coverage on groups associated with terrorism. On October 31, 2016, while working for the newspaper Cumhuriyet, Kadri Gürsel was taken into custody together with many of his colleagues. The journalists were arrested for alleged ties to terrorist organizations, including the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), and the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ).

Robert Madison Evans is an American author, journalist, and podcast host who has reported on global conflicts and online extremism. A former editor at the humor website Cracked.com, Evans now writes for the investigative journalism outlet Bellingcat while working on several podcasts, including Behind the Bastards, Behind the Police, Behind the Insurrections, It Could Happen Here, The Women's War, and Worst Year Ever. In 2021 he published his first novel, After The Revolution, in a serialized podcast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abdurrahman Gök</span> Journalist

Abdurrahman Gök is a journalist and the author of the photographs which documented the murder of Kemal Kurkut.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jacob Chansley</span> QAnon and January 6 Capitol attack figure

Jacob Anthony Angeli Chansley, also known as the QAnon Shaman, Q Shaman, and Yellowstone Wolf, is an American far-right conspiracy theorist, rioter, politician, media figure, and felon who participated in the January 6 United States Capitol attack, for which he was convicted after a guilty plea on charges of obstructing an official proceeding. He is a supporter of former US president Donald Trump and a former believer and disseminator of the QAnon conspiracy theory.

<i>QAnon Anonymous</i> Investigative journalism podcast about QAnon

QAnon Anonymous (QAA) is an investigative journalism podcast that analyzes and debunks conspiracy theories. It is co-hosted by Travis View, Julian Feeld, and Jake Rockatansky, alongside British correspondent: Annie Kelly, Canadian correspondent: Liv Agar. Inner Earth correspondent: Brad Abrahams, and QAA Legal Analyst: Allie Mezei.

<i>Q Into the Storm</i> Television series

Q: Into the Storm is an American documentary television miniseries directed and produced by Cullen Hoback. It explores the QAnon conspiracy theory and the people involved with it. It consisted of six episodes and premiered on HBO on March 21, 2021. The series received mixed reviews, with some critics praising its insight into the conspiracy theory, and others finding it to be overlong and lacking in analysis of the impacts of QAnon. Some reviewers have criticized the series for not following best practices outlined by extremism researchers for reporting on extremism and conspiracy theories.

References

  1. ↑ "Jake Hanrahan: Irregular Warfare". Throomers. 2 November 2019. Archived from the original on 30 November 2020. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
  2. ↑ "The Rise of Independent Journalism". The Defiance Podcast. 21 October 2019. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
  3. ↑ VICE News (21 October 2016), Inside the Front Lines Of The Ukrainian Cease-fire That Wasn't (HBO) , retrieved 7 November 2017
  4. ↑ Ingram, Mathew (21 October 2015). "VICE Media sites go dark in support of journalist imprisoned in Turkey". Fortune . Retrieved 3 November 2021.
  5. ↑ "Vice News journalists back in UK after release from Turkish prison". The Guardian. 6 September 2015. Retrieved 20 January 2017.
  6. ↑ Palmer, Ewan (3 September 2015). "Jake Hanrahan and best mate Philip Pendlebury: Vice News journalists arrested for 'aiding Isis' freed in Turkey". International Business Times UK. Retrieved 20 January 2017.
  7. ↑ "Northampton journalist urges Turkey to free imprisoned colleague". ITV News. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
  8. ↑ "Winners of the 2020 duPont-Columbia Awards | Columbia Journalism School". journalism.columbia.edu. Archived from the original on 1 March 2021. Retrieved 17 July 2021.
  9. ↑ "Interview: Popular Front's Jake Hanrahan promises all the details of modern war". The Defense Post. 22 August 2018. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  10. ↑ Markosian, Lilit (7 September 2021). "The Story of Nagorno-Karabakh Is Incomplete". Columbia Journalism Review . Retrieved 3 November 2021.
  11. ↑ Onapa, Emmanuel (17 November 2022). "How Jake Hanrahan Became One Of The Most Important Voices In War & Conflict Reporting". Complex.
  12. ↑ Schneider, Ari (16 February 2021). "3D-Printed Guns Are Getting More Capable and Accessible". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 24 April 2021.
  13. ↑ Simpson, John. "Militant network pushes homemade assault rifles". The Times . ISSN   0140-0460 . Retrieved 24 April 2021.
  14. ↑ "Q-Clearance: The Hunt for QAnon". Google Podcasts. 6 October 2020. Retrieved 18 November 2020.
  15. ↑ Joho, Jess. "The 18 best tech podcasts (that aren't 'Reply All')". Mashable. Retrieved 24 April 2021.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.