A mujahid with a videocamera. Photo: Manzoor Shah, 1988. Courtesy of the Afghan Media Resource Center.

CJR: In 1985… [US] Congress approved a $500,000 grant for the United States Information Agency, a department devoted to “public diplomacy,” to establish a journalism school for Afghan rebels. According to Alvin Snyder, who worked for the agency at the time, arming guerrillas with minicams was a simple, cost-effective way to deliver press attention. “Imagine the pictures they will be able to get!” he wrote in a memo, excerpted in his memoir… Click here to read more (external link).