Vaughan Smith is a freelance cameraman who was shot – the bullet fortunately lodging in his mobile telephone – while exclusively filming the Prekaz massacre.
In 1998 Vaughan organised and filmed the first unmasked interview with a member of the Kosovo Liberation Army, Femi Lladrovici, and filmed the aftermath of the Obrije massacre. In 1999, having secretly walked into Kosovo from Macedonia, he recorded the British Parachute Regiment arriving in Kosovo by helicopter during NATO’s intervention.
Vaughan was heading to the airport with them to interdict the Russians when they were recalled by British General Sir Mike Jackson.
Vaughan is a news pioneer who founded the Frontline Club in London in 2003 as a social enterprise to champion independent journalism and promote better understanding of international news and its coverage.
During the 1990s Vaughan worked as an award-winning independent cameraman and video news journalist covering wars and conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Kosovo and elsewhere.
During that time he also set up and ran Frontline Television News, an agency established to represent the interests of young journalists who wanted to push the envelope of their profession.
During those turbulent years, beginning with the fall of Communism through to post- 9/11, Frontline freelancers captured some of the best conflict footage around the world.
Vaughan himself filmed the only uncontrolled footage of the Gulf War in 1991, after he blued his way into an active-duty unit, disguised as a British Army officer.
The workings of Frontline Television News captured the imagination of a generation of young freelancers. Its history has been detailed in the 2005 book “Frontline: The True Story of the British Mavericks who Changed the Face of War Reporting,” by David Loyn of the BBC.
The risks that Frontline journalists took were great and eight members or former members were killed while working in the field. The Frontline Club is dedicated to their memory. Vaughan himself was shot twice, but escaped both times with light injuries.
As a freelance cameraman Vaughan won, either individually or as part of a team, 28 news awards. Many of them for “The Valley” (1999), a film Vaughan produced about the Kosovo War, which remains one of the most acclaimed documentaries broadcast by the UK’s Channel 4 Television.
During Vaughan’s time as a freelancer he worked for many of the world’s leading television stations and became an advocate of improved support for freelancers operating in war zones.
Prior to setting up Frontline, Vaughan was a captain in the British Army’s Grenadier Guards, serving in Northern Ireland, Cyprus and Germany. He captained the British Army shooting team and won the inter-army rifle shooting championship.
Vaughan is the elected Chair of the Frontline Freelance Register, FFR, a unique body with more than 1,500 registrants that promotes responsible, safe journalism and represents freelancers and local journalists worldwide.