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Shireen Abu Akleh, the slain Palestinian journalist, a name to recognize for generations to come

May 16, 2022

By: Benaz Batrawi/Ramallah

Shireen, 51, spent the last 25 years reporting for Al-Jazeera Arabic Channel. Before that, she worked for other media outlets during the mid of 90ts including the Voice of Palestine and Mont Carlo Radio.

Shireen was shot dead by the Israeli Army in Jenin in the West Bank on May 11, 2022 while wearing a body armor and a helmet clearly-marked “PRESS.”

Shireen’s funeral was the longest in Palestine, lasting for three days, and going through four Palestinian cities: Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah and lastly in Jerusalem, where she was laid to rest. Shireen was mourned by millions of Palestinians inside the country and in diaspora, in addition to millions of Arabs and internationals around the world.

Her colleagues at Al-Jazeera felt devastated by her assassination and cried for days during her long funeral. They all expressed their sorrow for losing such a professional, smart, objective and kind journalist.

Majdi Banoura, the cameraman who companioned her for long years and filmed her being shot dead said, “We worked together for 24 years and [I] still do not believe that she is gone, she considered us her big family.”

For the first time I cannot say or write about such an event.
Jivara Budeiri, her colleague and the second female reporter at Al-Jazeera in Ramallah office

Walid Omary the Bureau Chief of Al-Jazeera Office in Palestine commented in front of Shireen’s grave, “Good bye Shireen and thanks a lot for being who you are, you reunited all the Palestinian people again.”

Her childhood friend Rula Muzaffar wrote on Facebook, “What people do not know about Shireen besides being a prominent journalist that she had a child spirit, she was funny, respectful, modest, honest, and wise.”

Her only brother Anton remarked on her death that “the loss is very big but the love and respect surrounded us makes us strong and pride, thanks for all who supported us.”

Her death wounds Palestinians and journalists in the world, who until this day and age, continue to suffer or die through similar circumstances – in areas or situations of conflict while she was just doing her job. To Palestinians and journalists around the world, Shireen Abu Akleh is a name to recognize for generations to come and until such time journalism is no longer a most dangerous profession.

My Climate Change Story: The Democratization of Climate News

April 18, 2022

The complete discussion surrounding climate change is an abstraction. What does two degrees Celsius actually mean to people? Information and debate are dominated by national governments, large enterprises, scientists, and academia. The vast majority of media depend on these experts for their coverage of climate change. Our community’s experience has been ignored; and left out of the search for solutions.

My Climate Change Story is a project initiated by the International Association of Women in Radio and Television (IAWRT) to collect climate change vignettes from the people experiencing climate change first-hand and working together to protect the environment to make a difference. Submissions will be uploaded to My Climate Change YouTube Channel to begin a global discussion.

On March 18, 2022, we held our first event, in parallel with the 2022 UN Commission on the Status of Women, offering training in producing short videos using a cell phone. The two-hour session was oversubscribed by more than three times what the Zoom platform was able to accommodate, giving us a sense of the depth of interest and need for this training. The workshop covered ways to make the most of cell phone video capability – planning and storyboarding, angles and shot framing, and editing and uploading to YouTube channel – through demonstrations in plenary sessions and practical experience in breakout rooms. Workshop participants receive access for follow-up assistance.

On the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, May 3, 2022, we are organizing a virtual event to discuss the democratization of climate information. In the first part of the webinar, we will present two of the seven-minute vignettes submitted to My Climate Change YouTube channel. It will be followed by a panel of experts who will speak to the UNESCO theme and climate journalists. This past December Sasha Chavkin, of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and the Columbia Journalism Review, reported “Many of the countries that have seen the most violence against environmental defenders in recent years also rank near the bottom of the World Press Freedom Index.” Journalists must feel confident and safe to report their stories for the greater public good.

IAWRT’s ‘My Climate Change YouTube channel’ will contain original film shorts (three to seven minutes) created by women of all ages from countries around the world. The channel will be organized to highlight common themes, and to encourage future collaborations among participants, across boundaries of geography, culture, and age. Contents will be shared with journalists, to add personal experience to climate news that otherwise focuses only on science and statistics, technologies and politics and other distancing facts. Ultimately, our goal is to promulgate the idea that the people most affected by climate change – especially women and girls – and those most active in making a difference have the right to be making decisions that affect their own and their families’ fates and to be involved in the formulating of solutions that are otherwise imposed by national governments and distant corporations.

Our goal is to not only empower our members to use their cell phones to tell their stories, but to also teach other women and girls to produce cellphone cinema, and to also build community support for their everyday work. My Climate Change Story YouTube Channel is a laboratory for innovation and solutions that can be shared and emulated globally.

Panel of Experts include:

Gaea Katreena Cabico, The Philippines
UNESCO Asia Pacific
Elisabeth Eide, JMIC Norway
Dr. Michelle Ferrier, TrollBusters (USA)
Teopista Nabusoba, Kenya

We won’t solve the climate crisis unless we solve the misinformation crisis.

Remembering Gundel

February 28, 2022

Former IAWRT President Gundel Krauss Dahl passed away on February 13, 2022

Tribute from IAWRT Norway

Gundel’s voice, so often cheerful, enthusiastic and wise, will never be heard again. On February 13, she died suddenly and surprisingly. After 88 years her heart took its last beat.

Gundel, married to Arne for 68 years, was blessed with three children, several grandchildren, and (nearly) three great-grandchildren. To her family and friends, she was known as «grandma». That is how she often presented herself. «I am grandma», she would say. But she was also a woman with a sharp intellect and a big heart, and she took a real interest in people. She always had time. We are many who have felt her warmth.

Gundel leaves a great legacy behind. In 1958 she started working for NRK Radio, and for over 30 years she was NRK’s voice in the broadcasts abroad or the «seaman´s radio» as it was also called. Later she was entrusted with several management positions in NRK Radio and was also engaged in training new radio voices.

In the 1970´s Gundel became a strong promoter of international cooperation for female journalists. It started when she was encouraged by the then German president of the International Association of Women in Radio and Television (IAWRT) to join the then 20-year-old organization.

But at first, she was skeptical. She believed that there was no need for a separate organization for media women. But the NRK director thought it would be valuable for the broadcaster to be represented in an international organization that worked to promote women’s participation both in and through the media. Hence NRK paid for Gundel’s membership and covered conference costs.

At the conferences, Gundel experienced firsthand the strength of the organization’s network and the opportunities that this entailed. She became part of a professional network that gave her both personal contacts and long-lasting friendships. The members shared knowledge and experiences, and in collaboration with other organizations, they could provide members with access to internships and scholarships. They also engaged in projects for women beyond the organization, such as providing women in Nepal with access to information about their rights through the media.

This work became deeply meaningful for Gundel, and IAWRT shaped a large part of her life in the years to come. Until her death she has been an important resource for the organization and a great role model for us who have followed. When she became IAWRT’s President in 1997, she took important steps to secure funding for the organization and its operations. Not all members from Asia and Africa had bosses who paid for their participation. Gundel formed the IAWRT’s first national chapter in Norway. And as a Norwegian women’s organization, IAWRT Norway could become a member of the umbrella organization FOKUS, which secured funding for 20 years.

Without this support, the organization would not have been what it is today. We are many who have a lot to thank Gundel for. She will be deeply missed.

Afghan Journalist Najiba Ayubi Says World’s Silence is Killing Us

February 3, 2022

IAWRT Afghanistan Chapter President Najiba Ayubi did not think at first to leave the country. But when the Taliban showed outside her door, she started to think about how to get her whole family to safety.

This is not the first time she had to flee and not the first time armed men showed up at her home, yet she continued her work as a journalist. Now, she is finding ways to do so while in exile.

As managing director of Killid Group, a non-profit media network that includes two of the country’s most popular magazines (Killid Weekly and Mursal Weekly) and eight radio stations with a total of 12 million listeners, Ayubi has previously experienced threats in line with her work. Her steadfastness and dedication earned her the 2013 Courage in Journalism Award by the International Women’s Media Foundation. She was also named as one of the 100 Information Heroes by Reporters Without Borders.

In her program ‘Hot Seat’, IAWRT President Violet Gonda interviews Ayubi about her evacuation ordeal from Aghanistan to Germany and USA. The interview was done in December 2021 and published on February 3, 2022. The International Association of Women in Radio and Television has spent the last few months trying to assist its members to be evacuated from Afghanistan after the Taliban took over the country’s capital Kabul on August 15.