Our guest this episode has some advice for international journalists working abroad: “If you work with local journalists, give them a byline – they’re not your free fixers. The security of locals is more important than any story. And YOU, international journalist, you are not the story.”
And she would know. Award-winning journalist and communications consultant Zaina Erhaim comes from Idlib in northern Syria. She got started in journalism covering the Syrian revolution and the civil war that followed. Her reporting made her a target, and she left Syria in 2016. She now lives in the UK, where she continues to mentor Syrian journalists and report on the Middle East. In this interview she shares razor sharp insights into reporting on conflict, while upholding the dignity of sources and collaborators.
More content from this blog
- The People of Sudan and Their Fifty Shades of Black, by Weam Al-Bashir – 19 March 2024
- From Dignity to Racial Purity? Saied’s Anti-“African” Agenda, by Shreya Parikh – 7 May 2024
- Repression in Tanzania Demands the World’s Attention, by Tony W. Njoroge – 12 May 2026
- Hong Kong Under Japanese Occupation & Narratives of Greater East Asia: Glimpses from the Archives, by Diego Ge – 18 June 2026
- The Decolonial Literature of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, by Abdirashid Diriye Kalmoy – 12 July 2025
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