The local journalists who don’t make the headlines

Iraqi Kurdistan used to have one of Iraq’s most stable media environments. But after months of fighting between Islamic State (Isis), Kurdish Peshmerga forces and Iraqi security forces, the region’s independent journalists have arguably become some of the most hard-pressed in the world.

Under constant threat from Islamic State, Iraqi Kurdistan’s journalists are struggling to address the urgent information needs of hundreds of thousands internally displaced persons while battling with an economy unable to sustain independent, commercial media houses.

As if that didn’t present enough of an uphill battle, the independent and professional nature of Iraqi Kurdish journalism—a long-standing hallmark of the autonomous region’s media—is now being undermined by the authorities which encourage the media to employ a “patriotic” editorial line to discredit Islamic State.

This includes the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, Masoud Barzani, who has called on the media to label Kurdish fighters killed in the fight against Islamic State “martyrs” while others should be described merely as “casualties”. While some Kurdish media have stuck to their independent editorial line and ignored the President’s appeal, others have conformed.

Conforming to distorted one-sided reporting is nothing new for many Iraqi Arabic media houses elsewhere in Iraq. Over the past year, many of them have become outright sectarian with Shiite media houses aligned to Baghdad’s central government describing Islamic State militants as “terrorists” and Sunni media labeling them “revolutionaries”.

This trend is now gradually arriving in Kurdistan, previously a relatively enabling environment for free and professional journalism. The request for “patriotism” from the media is another way of saying “you are either with us or against us in fighting Islamic State”. Should media houses stick to their independent editorial line and risk retribution or ditch their professional standards and compromise their journalistic integrity? It’s no small dilemma.

International and national media groups working to support Iraqi Kurdistan’s media met in September in Sulaymaniyah to coordinate efforts on addressing the devastating impact of Islamic State’s military campaign on media houses and how it compromises their independence.

Following the meeting, Kurdish media actors are now devising a set of guidelines for independent media to assist them in their coverage of Islamic State. The guidelines are part of a larger package of assistance which also includes safety training courses and safety equipment such as helmets and flak jackets for journalists who operate in Islamic State-controlled areas. This training and equipment, which is provided by a coalition of international media development groups, including IMS, is a much-needed type of assistance: Iraq has seen 17 local journalists killed in the past 10 months.

Safety issues and editorial policies aren’t the only concerns of the Iraqi Kurdish media. Since the fighting between Iraqi security forces, Kurdish Peshmerga and armed groups including Islamic State broke out late last year, nearly 1.8 million people have fled their homes across primarily the western and northern parts of the country.

Many of them fled to Iraqi Kurdistan, where one in six residents now is an Iraqi IDP or Syrian refugee. Their information needs differ from those of the Kurds and differences in knowledge and culture and the lack of a common language (the IDPs and refugees mainly speak Arabic, whereas Iraqi Kurds primarily speak Kurdish) have caused tension between the newcomers and their host communities.

With support from IMS, the Iraqi Kurdish media are now looking at ways to assist the IDPs through improved access to reliable news and information on basic issues such as accessing aid services that will enable them to better cope with their situation.

The challenge of meeting the information needs of hundreds of thousands of IDPs and refugees only increases when the media’s business models start to fail. As the conflict continues, the commercial viability of the media declines and so do investments and advertising revenue.

And so, the media in Iraqi Kurdistan can add yet another challenge to an already extensive list of difficulties: convincing national and international donors to ramp up their support to media houses that despite the most adverse conditions cling to the standards of independent, professional journalism—media houses that can act a vital role in providing much-needed humanitarian information to hundreds of thousands of displaced people and bridge the divide between them and their Kurdish host communities.