Training a New Generation of Afghan Journalists
Afghan women journalists gain reporting skills through IWPR training videos.
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Welcome to IWPR’s Frontline Update, your go-to source to hear from journalists and local voices at the front lines of conflict.
THE BIG PICTURE
Media freedom in Afghanistan has been devastated since the Taliban takeover of August 2021. The regime has clamped down on a once-flourishing media scene with oppressive policies that curtail both freedom of expression and access to information – especially for women.
“We cannot publish any news without government approval,” Parwana, a 23-year-old female journalist working in a small town in Afghanistan, told IWPR. “If we reflect the facts as they are, our lives are put at risk.”
A new series of IWPR training videos for aspiring Afghan journalists, specifically aimed at women, is providing vital skills needed to provide an essential source of information on critical human rights issues in Afghanistan.
VOICES FROM THE FRONTLINE
“The video series is part of a larger effort by IWPR to provide local media outlets and journalists with much-needed resources,” explained IWPR’s Middle East and South Asia programme manager Reza Akbari.
“Our consultations with several Afghan diaspora organisations revealed that many have yet to develop their capacities to create such content, especially because the task requires established connections with academics or prominent international media outlets, as well as ability to dedicate substantial resources to design, develop and distribute the tailored material.”
Using a concise and accessible format, the short films take aspiring reporters through the building blocks of good journalism practice. Modules include identifying news, gathering information from local sources, interview techniques and mobile photography.
Designing and producing the videos was challenging, as many media workers who have left Afghanistan still fear for their families remaining inside.
“After months of effort, IWPR’s production team managed to identify an experienced female journalist and presenter living abroad willing to take on the task,” Akbari continued. “This was an important approach in ensuring the production of more relatable content for Afghanistan’s women journalists, since they are in dire need of such resources and education. Under normal circumstances such material would be provided by the country’s institutions of higher education. Since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, however, Afghan women have been banned from pursuing any education beyond primary level.”
WHY IT MATTERS
More than 80 per cent of female reporters in Afghanistan have lost their jobs, according to research by Reporters Without Borders. The very few journalists – women or men – who remain working in Afghanistan must navigate intimidation and grave threats to their security.
Any aspiring media workers are denied access to training or mentoring, and strictly censored media only publishes content sanctioned by the Taliban.
“In general, the media have been turned into a platform for amplifying the voice of the current government,” Saba, a 24-year-old journalist in Kabul, told IWPR, her last name withheld for security reasons.
While the primary audience for the videos are in-country media workers, the content will also benefit a diaspora community which, despite numerous personal and professional challenges, strives to ensure reporting from Afghanistan continues.
Among the few sources of accurate information on events within Afghanistan are media such as IWPR partners Etillat Roz and Zan Times, which continue to work with sources inside the country.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Factual reporting from inside Afghanistan is critical to alerting the world to the reality of life under the Taliban. Female reporters are especially important to be able to tell the stories of women who are suffering particularly severe repression.
IWPR launched programming in Afghanistan in 2002, training thousands of journalists, establishing media centres and journalism faculties across the country, and launching Pajwok, the nation’s first independent news agency.
We continue to support brave independent journalists who defy the Taliban’s campaign of repression to continue reporting the truth – and our video training series will help enable them to lift the veil on life under this brutal regime.
