Nearer East

Syria’s Shifting Media Landscape with Natacha Danon

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? Subscribe to my Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@francessmarlo [https://www.youtube.com/@francessmarlo] Follow me: - Instagram: @francessmarlo - TikTok: @francessmarlo - X (Twitter): @francessmarlo - Substack: Francesca Maria Lorenzini / @francessmarlo

Challenging Colonial Narratives in Refugee Representation with Yafa El Masri

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? Subscribe to my Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@francessmarlo [https://www.youtube.com/@francessmarlo] Follow me: - Instagram: @francessmarlo - TikTok: @francessmarlo - X (Twitter): @francessmarlo - Substack: Francesca Maria Lorenzini / @francessmarlo

Telling Assyrian Stories from Iraq with Joe Snell

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. Subscribe to my Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@francessmarlo [https://www.youtube.com/@francessmarlo] Follow me: - Instagram: @francessmarlo - TikTok: @francessmarlo - X (Twitter): @francessmarlo - Substack: Francesca Maria Lorenzini / @francessmarlo

Half Foreign, Half Local: Life in Yemen with Laura Silvia Battaglia

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. Subscribe to my Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@francessmarlo [https://www.youtube.com/@francessmarlo] Follow me: - Instagram: @francessmarlo - TikTok: @francessmarlo - X (Twitter): @francessmarlo - Substack: Francesca Maria Lorenzini / @francessmarlo

The Question About Gaza That Cost a Journalist His Job with Gabriele Nunziati

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. Subscribe to my Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@francessmarlo [https://www.youtube.com/@francessmarlo] Follow me: - Instagram: @francessmarlo - TikTok: @francessmarlo - X (Twitter): @francessmarlo - Substack: Francesca Maria Lorenzini / @francessmarlo