Nov 03 2013
The mighty pen
This appeared in Columbia Journalism Review magazine.
By Alice Su
When Hazm al-Mazouni shows his press pass at the entrance to the sprawling Zaatari refugee camp in the Jordanian desert, the guards don’t let him in. A 42-year-old native of Hama, Syria, Al-Mazouni’s status in Jordan is clear: refugee. But the guards are wary of his Radio al-Balad badge. “This is proof that we did something,†Al-Mazouni says, smiling. “A good thing.â€
Al-Mazouni has been a refugee for 11 months and a journalist for seven. He wears brown, horn-rimmed glasses and walks briskly, a laptop bag hanging from his shoulder and two cell phones in hand, one for personal calls, the other for work. Zaatari administrators are well aware of his reporting for Syrians Among Us, a radio news program and online bulletin produced by Syrian refugees.
The program began as pilot project in October 2012 by the Community Media Network(CMN), a Jordanian nonprofit that supports independent media in the Arab world. CMN’s funding comes largely from Western foundations, notably the Open Society Foundations, UNESCO, and the National Endowment for Democracy. A US State Department grant of $77,000 paid for the first phase of Syrians Among Us. Continue Reading »