Armament Research Services (ARES) offers a range of technical review, research, and analysis services to various media organisations. Our staff have worked with numerous media organisations and freelance journalists on a range of stories with an arms and munitions angle, as well as providing comment or interviews as required.
ARES is delighted to announce our decision to offer similar services to freelancers through our Freelance Journalist Assistance Program (FJAP), at heavily reduced rates and even on a pro bono basis in some instances.
ARES is able to offer assistance in the identification of arms and munitions, as well as providing accurate historical, technical, and/or geopolitical context.
We have invited Damien Spleeters to become our program ambassador, in light of his excellent freelance work examining issues dealing with arms and munitions. Here’s what Damien had to say about the program, and on documenting arms and munitions in conflict and post-conflict zones:
“Documenting weapons and ammunition has many benefits for journalists covering a conflict: credibility among knowledgeable readers; a new level of complexity and granularity; evidence of diversion, traffic, crime.
Weapons are material documents containing stories, they make people talk – the living and the dead. To read a weapon is to read a war. It’s working toward transparency, accountability. By helping journalists to properly identify the tools of war, ARES gives them the opportunity to put a conflict in context, that way giving the audience an accurate account of what is going on, but also a better understanding of the dynamics defining war.”
– Damien Spleeters, freelance journalist & ARES FJAP Ambassador
For more information, please see our FJAP information page.
You can register your interest by contacting: FJAP@armamentresearch.com
Image copyright Damien Spleeters.