Journalism in Syria is changing but the fear that once defined it hasn’t fully disappeared.

Natacha Danon, journalist and executive director of Syria Direct, reflects on reporting under the Assad regime, where protecting sources meant relying on encrypted tools and anonymity. Today, while access and openness have improved, many journalists still navigate unspoken red lines and lingering risks. Is this a real turning point for press freedom, or just a temporary opening?

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Refugees are often depicted as helpless children, but what if that image itself stems from a colonial legacy?
Researcher Yafa El Masri, who grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut, saw firsthand how images shape understanding. Photographs usually show children in states of vulnerability not because that’s all they are, but because Western media and aid systems tend to favor those narratives. This framing, she says, casts refugees solely as victims and denies them agency. 

But what if refugees were the ones telling their own stories, instead of researchers, aid workers or journalists deciding which stories get told?

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Joe Snell is an award-winning Assyrian American journalist reporting from Erbil in northern Iraq. His work has taken him across Iraq and Lebanon, as well as Europe and the United States, with bylines in outlets like The Washington Post and Al-Monitor. He is the founder of The Assyrian Journal and the author of “Our Assyrian Story,” a project dedicated to documenting the history and lived experiences of the global Assyrian community.

Throughout his career, he has focused on shedding light on this often underreported community, ultimately choosing to go independent and relocate to Iraq last October.

In this episode, we explore his path into journalism, his life on the ground in Iraq and what it means to tell the stories of one of the region’s oldest and most overlooked communities.

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Laura Silvia Battaglia is an Italian journalist covering the Middle East (what she and other colleagues prefer to call South West Asia) and a specialist on Yemen, where she lived for years after the Arab uprisings. 

It’s a place that shaped not just her career, but her personal life too. While there, she became part of a Yemeni family, which gave her rare access to stories and a much deeper understanding of how culture and society actually work.

In our conversation, we talk about what it means to be “half foreign and half local” as a journalist, why there are so few female Yemeni journalists, and the biggest mistakes Western reporters tend to make when covering the region.

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What if asking a single question could cost you your job?

In this episode of “Nearer East,” I sit down with Gabriele Nunziati, whose question to the European Commission — whether Israel should be required to pay for Gaza’s reconstruction, just as Russia is expected to pay for Ukraine — went viral and ultimately led to his dismissal from the Italian news agency Agenzia Nova.

But for Nunziati, holding power to account isn’t optional, it’s the very essence of journalism.

Listen to our conversation to hear what he is doing now.

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What is Kurdistan, and why does it remain one of the world’s largest stateless nations?

Simone Gavazzi, teaching fellow at Maastricht University and filmmaker specializing in migration, minority rights, and Kurdish political identity, unpacks the Kurdish question and the future of Syria.

From the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the Treaty of Lausanne to the rise of ISIS and the creation of the Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria (Rojava), Simone explains the historical, political, and social forces shaping Kurdish identity and aspirations.

Book Recommendations

• “Democratic Confederalism” by Abdullah Öcalan
• “Daesh” by Sara Montinaro
• “Burning Country” by Robin Kassab and Leila Alshami

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Most coverage of Iran feeds us a simplified, often biased narrative, highlighting nuclear threats and proxy conflicts while ignoring Iran’s nuanced realities.

But what if the true story of Iran is much richer, and more complex, than the headlines?

In this episode, Kourosh Ziabari, an Iranian journalist based in New York, uncovers how Western media's stereotypes distort understanding and fuel dehumanization, paving the way for misinformed policies and escalation.

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What remains of a nation when its history is turned to rubble? In the first episode of "Nearer East," I spoke with Sophie Constantin, a Belgian-Lebanese archaeologist and journalist who has spent years chronicling the “silent casualties” of Middle Eastern conflicts.

From the ancient libraries of Gaza to the looted museums of Khartoum, she explains why the destruction of a monument is never just “collateral damage,” but a calculated assault on the soul of a people. In a world where heritage is weaponized to rewrite history, protecting the past has become a vital act of securing the future.

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