Al Jazeera Journalism Review

Telling the stories of brutality - reporting on political prisoners in Belarus

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK: Constructing a long-form feature to document the narratives of Belarusians imprisoned for protesting after the 2020 presidential election was a pain-staking, months-long task fraught with danger

Olga
Olga Loginova, Ottavia Spaggiari Published on: 30 Mar, 2022
We need more raw coverage of conflict zones to make people care about all refugees

Coverage of Ukrainian refugees has been more sympathetic because it is usually accompanied by images of the crisis they are fleeing

Tomasz
Tomasz Lesniara Published on: 27 Mar, 2022
‘Not an easy ride’ - the long and winding road to digital journalism in Cameroon

How do you mark yourself as a professional reporter in Cameroon when everyone has a Facebook page and claims to be a ‘journalist’?

Akem
Akem Nkwain Published on: 23 Mar, 2022
Facebook is showing its double standards over freedom of speech

Hate speech is a bad idea. A good idea would be for platforms to show consistency in their content moderation, particularly when it comes to Palestine

A picture of the author, Abeer alNajjar
Abeer Al-Najjar Published on: 17 Mar, 2022
When women are being smeared - listen to what they are saying

Cassandra was cursed to always see the future, but to never be believed. For female journalists like Carole Cadwalladr, long dismissed as a 'mad cat lady', it’s a familiar tale

Nina Montagu-Smith
Nina Montagu-Smith Published on: 16 Mar, 2022
From Syria to Ukraine - telling the stories of Russian aggression

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK: Omar Al Hajj, a Syrian journalist working for Al Jazeera, explains what it’s like to go from covering war in his own country to bearing witness to another on a different continent

A picture of the author, Mohammad Ahdad.
Mohammad Ahdad Published on: 15 Mar, 2022
Zimbabwe’s Fourth Estate is under siege

With few job opportunities, harassment by the authorities and a global pandemic, the picture for balanced and truthful journalism is not a pretty one

Derick Matsengarwodzi
Derick Matsengarwodzi Published on: 13 Mar, 2022
‘A sense of belonging has been taken away from us’ - the closure of the Kashmir Press Club

THE LONG READ: The closure of the Kashmir Press Club in January this year has come as a major blow to independent journalists in the troubled region who relied on it for camaraderie, respite and a ‘place to share ideas’

Sharafat
Meher Qadri, Sharafat Ali Published on: 10 Mar, 2022
Reporter’s Notebook: Inside Europe’s largest brothel 

While covering a story about a Spanish proposal to outlaw middlemen involved in prostitution, AJE senior correspondent Natasha Ghoneim and her team came up against a wall of silence, but managed to get a story nevertheless

Natasha Ghoneim
Natasha Ghoneim Published on: 8 Mar, 2022
The irony of fake news - sometimes it serves to highlight injustice

Last week, the image of a blonde-haired Palestinian girl standing up to an Israeli soldier was wrongly credited as an image of a Ukrainian girl confronting a Russian soldier. The intention was to garner sympathy for Ukraine - instead, it had a rather different outcome

Muhammad AlKhamaiseh Published on: 6 Mar, 2022
Examining the imagery of women during wartime

ANALYSIS: Some images of women in Ukraine have gone viral in the past week. But what do these specific images add to the narrative surrounding the Russian invasion and what of the women who don’t fit the media image of the “ideal” female?

Aleeha
Aleeha Zahra Ali Published on: 3 Mar, 2022
Investigating racist conviction laws in America - and seeing a man freed after 25 years

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK:  How a team of journalists spent nearly a year investigating the conviction and 25-year imprisonment of Brandon Jackson and then watched him walk free

Jeremy Young
Jeremy Young Published on: 2 Mar, 2022
‘Heroes’ and ‘worthy’ refugees - the hypocrisy of Western media over Ukraine

While news anchors marvel at how refugees from Ukraine are ‘just like us’ and glorify women taking up Kalashnikovs against Russian invaders, we compare their treatment with that of Syrian and Afghan refugees, and Palestinian resistors

Azraa
Azraa Muthy Published on: 28 Feb, 2022
‘You must know how to haggle!’ - racism in journalism starts in the classroom 

Even though I didn’t choose to, I quickly became that one ‘annoying’ journalist of colour who had to keep mentioning racism in my journalism school. It was humiliating and exhausting, to the point of nearly quitting

Azraa
Azraa Muthy Published on: 24 Feb, 2022
Reporter’s Notebook - on the trail of Boko Haram

For one journalist in Nigeria, covering the activities of the militant Islamist group, Boko Haram, primarily means documenting the horrifying stories of its victims, sometimes to his own cost

Philip Obaji Jr
Philip Obaji Jr Published on: 21 Feb, 2022
Avoiding mistakes in the newsroom - verifying video from external sources

When video of Osama Bin Laden surfaced around the time of the September 11 attacks on New York in 2001, many people questioned its credibility. We examine how Al Jazeera verifies the authenticity of outside materials, much of it produced by 'citizen journalists' 

A picture of the author, Montaser Marai.
Montaser Marai Published on: 15 Feb, 2022
Branded a ‘troublemaker’ and summoned by the police - life for female journalists in Kashmir

The repeal of Kashmir’s autonomous status by the Indian government, combined with a crackdown on press freedom, has made life extremely tough for women journalists in the region.

Safina
Safina Nabi Published on: 10 Feb, 2022
Making the world a better place - one camera ‘click’ at a time

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK: How one photojournalist in Nigeria takes a ‘solutions-based’ approach to the images he captures.

Femi2
Femi Amogunla Published on: 2 Feb, 2022
Human rights lessons from a ‘terrorist’ journalist

It has ever been the case that when a journalist reports crimes by a despot, militant group or even, these days, a so-called democratic state, he is liable to be labelled a criminal.

Clive Stafford Smith
Clive Stafford Smith Published on: 30 Jan, 2022
Deploying news teams to dangerous places - what media organisations need to know

Reporting from the heat of battle or covering the tragedy and desolation of a humanitarian disaster can be perilous, but the risks are less if media professionals are prepared for the task. 

Aidan
Aidan White Published on: 27 Jan, 2022
How should we talk about Pakistan?

How do journalists report accurately about a country which suffers sectarian violence without reinforcing Islamophobic tropes?

Haroon Khalid
Haroon Khalid Published on: 24 Jan, 2022