REFUGEE REPORTING

“Something changed in Egypt and life became very difficult.  Public opinion changed against Syrians and the government did not want to have Syrians in their country.  So I decided to leave,” Ahmad tells DCMF.

“I left my family, including my pregnant wife, and went to Istanbul where I found a job as a correspondent for the London-based channel, Alghad Alarabi.  Now I am covering all political issues including the activity of the Syrian opposition.”

The relief of getting a job, and eventually being able to relocate his wife, daughter and newborn son, made life in Istanbul more bearable than his tenure in Egypt had become.

“For two years I had been unemployed, which was an awful feeling.  I was so happy to be a journalist again – it is all I ever wanted to do, and all I know how to do.”

 

Wasted talent

 

Despite his experience and professional expertise, Ahmad realises that he is lucky to be employed.

“I know many journalists who left Syria who have been forced to sleep in the streets because they have nothing,” he says, adding “very good editors and journalists are facing extreme difficulties when they leave.”

“I know I am very lucky just to have a job.”

However, life as a refugee remains a challenge, and Ahmad continues to work without the required documentation, meaning that he lives in fear of losing his position which has become his source of financial as well as psychological wellbeing.

“I could not live as a refugee – I need to be productive, I need to work.”

 

Standards and professionalism

 

Ahmad believes the media landscape that he left behind remains devoid of the responsible journalism that the Syrian people so desperately need.

“There is no professional journalism in Syria anymore,” argues Ahmad, stating that both state and opposition television channels engage in nothing more than propaganda production.  In doing so, they deny the Syrian people their right to access to information, and completely fail to fulfill their duties as journalists, he argues.

During a trip to Geneva to cover talks between the government and opposition, Ahmad encountered a number of his former colleagues who continue to work for state television.   The meeting served as an unpleasant reminder of the life he had left behind, and the difficulties facing journalists in Syria.

“They would not even say hello to me.

“I feel bad for them.  They are stuck there.  Luckily I had the financial ability to defect and to support myself, but many of them do not.  So they are stuck in their jobs.”

Ahmad said that a perceived lack of support from the opposition towards defectors means that few journalists feel safe enough to leave their posts working for state media, and instead find themselves contributing towards the “ridiculous coverage” of events in Syria.

“This is not TV – it is like a sectarian channel, pushing people to kill.  This is not media anymore, this is a ridiculous play for the Syrian people,” he says, mentioning coverage of the recent presidential election as an example of this.