Local reporters in conflict, impartiality and standardised journalistic ethics

Zaina Erhaim

Before 2011, journalism used to be a minor career which very limited numbers of Syrians aim to do, there wasn't even have a collage to teach it in the whole country, as it was only touch in a small department in the Art School shared with the Libraries department.

However, when the uprising started in 2011, hundreds of syrians have become what is known today as "citizen journalists" , they kept reporting the war from inside syria and neighbouring countries for social media, local and international media.

As the conflict was getting more aggressive some decided to be impeded with armed groups or political parties, leaving the independent ones to be the few credible sources of what is happening, and despite being the main source of information for 9 years, those independent local journalists were not yet being recognised as journalists by mainstream media. Especially the western one.

Being independent imposed extra obstacles and challenges on the local journalists, and there has been exclusive extra ones being imposed on the women of them.

This lecture will look into the how applicable the western standardise journalistic ethics are on local journalists in war zones, the extra layers of difficulties they face, and the women-exclusive ones. It will also shed a light on the corporate media outlets and international journalists' usual attitude toward those local journalists, and how should it be from a local journalist perspective.

Zaina Erhaim , Syrian journalist working as communication manager with the Institute for War and Peace reporting, lived, worked and trained a hundred of media activist while living in rebel held Syria before leaving it in 2016. Zaina is MA graduate from City University and has been working as a journalist for the last 13 years, she also contributed to three books related to journalism and women journalists working in conflict zones.

Organiser: CGMC

Contact email: mp41@soas.ac.uk