Afghan Media Resource Center

The Afghan Media Resource Center (AMRC) was founded in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1987. The goal of the project was to assist Afghans to produce and distribute accurate and reliable accounts of the Afghan war to news agencies and television networks throughout the world. Qualified Afghans were recruited from all major political parties, all major ethnic groups and all regions of Afghanistan, to receive professional training in print journalism, photo journalism and video news production Stephen Olsson was hired by Boston University as the US Project Director and Project Manager. Nick Mills as Training Director. Haji Sayed Daud, a former television producer and journalist at Kabul TV before the Soviet invasion, was subsequently named AMRC Director.

Three-person teams were dispatched on specific stories throughout Afghanistan’s 27 provinces, with 35mm cameras, video cameras, notebooks, and audio tape recorders. Photo materials were distributed internationally through SYGMA and Agence France Press (AFP), Video material was syndicated and broadcast by VisNews (now Reuters), with 150 broadcasters in 87 countries Euronews and London-based WTN (now Associated Press),Thames Television, ITN, Swedish, French, Pakistani and other regional networks. In 2000 AMRC began publishing a popular and influential newspaper in Kabul; ERADA (Intention). With one interruption, ERADA publication continued until 2012.

The AMRC collection, preserved at the Library of Congress and available through The Internet Archive, spans a critical period in Afghanistan’s history – (1987 – 2012) including 94,652 photographs and slides, 1,175 hours of video material, 356 hours of audio material, and many stories from print media.