Yemen’s new generation of radio journalists

By Frank Esmann

Yemen’s journalists are often under immense pressure from editors and media owners and have some of the most difficult working conditions in the world. Danish journalist Frank Esmann tells of his experiences training a group of young, budding Yemeni radio journalists.

The trainings took place in Sana’a and Aden, both notoriously unsafe places for foreigners with kidnappings, gunfire and bombings not unlikely occurrences. I was struck by two things as I arrived.

The first was the overwhelming welcome I received as an instructor. Second, I quickly realised how you cannot teach journalism and storytelling effectively in Yemen without referring to the reality that the journalists work in. They are under tremendous pressure and work in a fragmented, sectarian and corrupt media environment. Political pressure makes the fight for press freedom difficult.

“It doesn’t matter what I say or how I behave. Because I am a TV presenter, everybody thinks I am corrupt,” said a young TV journalist. The journalists do not only face censorship and political pressure but also a widespread public perception that they are part of a rotten system.

The 10-day long workshop themed “From journalism to storytelling” engaged the journalists in an intense and highly committed dialogue about radio journalism. The workshop covered topics including ethics and basic journalism principles on fairness and balance when covering a story.

In the workshop in Sana’a, all 13 students worked for Yemen Times Radio and their backgrounds and experiences were nearly identical. The two classes in Aden, on the other hand, each consisting of 15 students, brought together young people with no experience, TV presenters, radio reporters, a psychologist and two lawyers.

“My stories are sometimes altered so that they support a specific attitude towards a specific problem – even if it does not reflect reality,” said a frustrated and disappointed radio journalist. The comment reflects the general impressions I got from the class. A large part of Yemeni media is affected by political, religious or tribe related motives.

This interferes with the daily work of the young journalists. But at the same time they also see opportunities in the radio scene and in social media platforms. A young woman showed me a show on TV filled with nothing but a seemingly endless amount of quotes from the Qur’an. “Who wants to see this?” she whispered as she held her iPad covered in various stickers from the media industry. The once so dominant religious signifiers seemingly no longer have the same power among the youth.

The students tested the theories from the workshops in practice by making a radio reportage about people’s expectations to Yemen’s new government and its new prime minister. We analysed the reportages together clip by clip, and we covered the obstacles that may arise, and the compromises that have to be made when reporters are forced to deal with questions that quite literarily make people commit murder.

Constructive feedback can be a powerful instrument in the fight for press freedom. This is especially true when young journalists know that feedback and criticism not only applies to themselves but that it should also be directed at editors and others in a position of power who censor and distort.

Frank Esmann is a Danish journalist and author. He is a former editor in chief of the Danish weekly Weekendavisen and former foreign correspondent for the Danish Broadcasting Corporation and the daily Dagbladet Information. Frank Esmann visited Yemen and carried out journalistic skills training for radio journalist as part of IMS’ work to improve the levels of professional journalism in the country.