Al Jazeera Journalism Review
Safety Strategies Female Journalists Use in Hostile Environments
Female journalists across Africa face layered physical, gender-based, digital, and psychological risks while covering protests, elections, conflict, and crises, forcing them to rely on hard-earned survival strategies as much as newsroom support.
Latest Articles
How Much AI is Too Much AI for Ethical Journalism
As artificial intelligence transforms newsrooms across South Asia, journalists grapple with the fine line between enhancement and dependency
How to Tell the Stories of Gaza’s Children
Where does compassion end and journalism begin? How can one engage with children ethically, and is it even morally acceptable to conduct interviews with them? Palestinian journalist Reem Al-Qatawy offers a profoundly different approach to human-interest reporting. At the Hope Institute in Gaza, she met children enduring the harrowing aftermath of losing their families. Her experience was marked by intense professional and ethical challenges.
How Is Western Media Framing the Famine Catastrophe in the Gaza Strip?
Can the media subject the issue of famine in Palestine to so-called professional balance even after UN agencies and the International Court of Justice have acknowledged it? Why have many Western media outlets avoided precise legal and ethical terms such as “famine” or “starvation,” opting instead for vague expressions like “food shortage” or “nutrition crisis”? Doesn’t this practice reflect a clear bias in favor of the Israeli narrative and serve to justify the policy of “systematic starvation”?
Do Foreign Journalists Matter in Covering Genocide? A Look into Bosnia, Rwanda, and Gaza
How did foreign journalists cover the killings in both Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda? Did they contribute to conveying the truth and making an impact? Would the entry of foreign journalists into the Gaza Strip change the reality of the ongoing genocide? And would their coverage of the famine and massacres add to the daily coverage of local journalists? Why is the local press's coverage of wars seen as deficient compared to Western journalism, even though they incur greater losses and casualties?
Newspapers: An Industry Adapting to Survive Through Digital Transformation
As digital transformation reshapes the media landscape, newspapers in Cameroon are navigating unprecedented challenges and opportunities. This evolution compels them to adapt their strategies to engage a new generation of readers amidst fierce online competition, decreasing government subsidies, and a decline in print sales.
How Palestine Is Forcing Journalists to Reexamine Objectivity and Decolonize
This article argues that the Palestinian context exposes the colonial roots of traditional journalism and calls for a decolonial approach that centers marginalized voices, promotes collaborative reporting, and demands structural change within newsrooms to uphold journalistic integrity.
Opinion
Anam Hussain
US-Iran Islamabad Talks: How Journalists Report from Outside Closed Doors
The "Islamabad Talks" highlight a growing contradiction in modern diplomacy where journalists are physically present but denied direct access to negotiations. The pressure on transparency appears…
Bashar Hamdan
Can Artificial Intelligence Become a Documentary Film Director?
AI opens new possibilities in documentary filmmaking, from sorting archives to speeding up production. But documentary is not built on technology alone: it depends on the director’s vision,…
Derick Matsengarwodzi
When Speaking Up Backfires: How Social Conformity Silences Journalists
While state censorship remains a reality, freedom of speech in Africa faces a rising internal threat: the community itself. This article examines how social conformity, digital echo chambers, and…
Diaries
Journalism in Gaza: A Struggle for Survival
In Gaza, journalism becomes inseparable from the life it documents: reporting continues not from a distance, but from within the same fear, grief, and instability it tries to record.
Journalism in Gaza… A Race Against the Train of Genocide
In the following account, Amira Nassar presents a narrative filled with intricate detail, intimate exchanges, and an unyielding struggle over the meaning of writing amid slaughter and starvation. Part of The Journalism Review’s documentary project recording the testimonies of journalists in Palestine and the Gaza Strip during the ongoing genocide, it stands as a testament against oblivion and the machinery of extermination.
From News Reporting to Documentation: Practical Lessons from Covering the War on Gaza
From the very first moment of the genocidal war waged by Israel on Gaza, Al Jazeera correspondent Hisham Zaqout has been a witness to hunger, devastation, war crimes, and the assassination of his colleagues in the field. It is a battle for survival and documentation, one that goes beyond mere coverage and daily reporting.
Reports
Safety Strategies Female Journalists Use in Hostile Environments
Female journalists across Africa face layered physical, gender-based, digital, and psychological risks while covering protests, elections, conflict, and crises, forcing them to rely on hard-earned survival strategies as much as newsroom support.
The Afterlife of an Image: How Photojournalism Contests Shape Visibility and Responsibility
As photojournalism contests elevate certain images to global prominence, they also influence how violence, dignity, and memory are constructed in the public imagination.
Malawi Investigates Poor Pay and Working Conditions for Junior Journalists
Malawi’s investigation into poor pay for junior journalists exposes a deeper crisis where economic hardship is eroding media independence and forcing reporters to choose between ethical integrity and survival.
Journalism as a Struggle for Survival in Sudan
With war erupting in Sudan, the country’s media landscape collapsed almost overnight after the Rapid Support Forces entered Khartoum. Many journalists were left without jobs, salaries or shelter, scattered between displacement, exile and siege, as newspapers shut down and media institutions ceased to function. For many, journalism was no longer a profession but a daily struggle for survival.
From Print to Pixels: How Small-Town Journalists in Bihar Are Surviving Threats and Closures
As newspapers vanish across districts like Siwan, Gaya, and Purnea, reporters turn to mobile phones, digital start-ups and community networks to keep local journalism alive.
Arab Society and Investigative Journalism: The Dialectic of Culture, Power, and Profession
Investigative journalism in Arab societies operates within a dense web of social, political, and cultural pressures that often push journalists to balance truth-telling against survival, forcing them onto a precarious “razor’s edge.” Yet despite these constraints, moments of crisis can transform society itself from a source of pressure into a powerful ally, driving accountability and reigniting the pursuit of truth.
