History of Out There News

From 1996-2001, Out There News captured the imagination of Net users in more than 70 countries by reinventing the way world news was reported for digital media.

We started in an attic in the East End of London and built a network of 41 correspondents in 32 countries. Our reports and multimedia documentaries featured on the Net’s biggest portals - America Online and Yahoo! - and on the UK's biggest cable network, ntl.

Revenue dried up in the recession of 2001 and we had to cut back. We moved into television production, concentrating on the Middle East and Islamic issues.

Out There News supplied Channel 4 News with coverage of Iraq from a bureau in Baghdad and has made longer documentaries for Channel 4, BBC and Al Jazeera. Out There News also helped Iraqi journalists to create an independent national news agency, Voices of Iraq.

Past projects

MEGASTORIES on interactive TV: highly visual packages navigable with one thumb on a remote control.

DIARIES OF CONFLICT: first-hand accounts from people touched by America's war with Osama bin Laden - a US sailor's girlfriend in Massachussetts, an Afghan living under a plastic sheet in a refugee camp.

OUT THERE ON AOL: a daily magazine of raw, unfiltered reporting taken straight from the correspondent’s notebook onto the screen. Out There reported the horror of war in Chechnya, terror in East Timor and Iraq under sanctions.

OUT THERE REPORTS: a current affairs magazine for children aged 8-14 with a third of the stories written by the children themselves. Topics ranged from keeping rabbits and meeting pop stars to racism at school and the death of a parent.

WORLD FROM THE ATTIC: a weekly half-hour audio show developed for AOL radio mixing interviews, correspondent reports and satirical poetry.

MAKING SENSE OF...: Guides to make people instant experts in hot topics - GM Foods, computer viruses, global warming. For BBC Online.

LIVE CHAT ON VIRGIN NET: weekly live events online with guests on topics from the death of Diana to living through the Bosnian civil war.

People

Paul Eedle
Media executive and journalist; ran big news organisations and reported wars for Reuters; covered Fall of Saddam for Channel 4 News and Financial Times. @pauleedle

John West
Journalist and developing world technology guru; set up radio stations in Afghanistan as Country Director of Internews. Later Director of Internews Europe and now consulting for UNDP in Jordan.

Sophie Arie
First editor of OTN's site of daily raw reports from correspondents. Reported from Lima and Buenos Aires for the Observer, Daily Telegraph and Boston Globe, then from Rome for The Guardian. Now at Tyler Brule's magazine Monocle.

Heather Sharp
Journalist and web producer; edited OTN's main Megastories website and created Diaries of Conflict. Reported for BBC News Online from Jerusalem, now education correspondent in UK.

Becky Vincent
Multimedia journalist and editor; edited OTN's site of daily raw reports from correspondents. Later at Consumers International and Radio 4.

Chloe Arnold
Creator and editor of Out There Reports, OTN's website for children. Was BBC's correspondent in the Caucasus based in Baku, later in Moscow and Algiers.

Gary Loach
Deputy editor of Out There Reports, then edited websites and publications for Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital.

Muddassir Rizvi
OTN's coordinator in Islamabad, worked tirelessly after Sept 11, 2001 to help ordinary Afghans and Pakistanis tell their stories to a world audience. Now freelance journalist in Islamabad.

Guy Dinmore
Reported Serbia's war in Kosovo from its first village massacres until the massive NATO bombing. Later Financial Times correspondent in Tehran and Washington.

Alex Smailes
Photojournalist who covered civil war in Macedonia and post-Sept 11 upheaval in Pakistan in vivid picture stories. Returned home in Trinidad covering the Caribbean and produced a photo book on Trinidad and Tobago.