When I entered Carleton University’s journalism program in 2022, I believed the industry was ready to embrace racialized journalists and their perspectives. I was prepared to shed light on untold stories as an early-career student journalist.
Through my work in the Charlatan, I’ve had the opportunity to report on several communities and the social issues that impact them. It’s some of the most meaningful work I’ve done in my life.
Reporting on my own community has been a different challenge.
As a Palestinian, I’ve grown up with personal stories and narratives shaping my perception of the world around me.
Every family gathering always involved conversations about the status of our homeland, reminiscing about the past and hoping for a future there.
As a Canadian journalist, none of those narratives are supposed to enter my coverage. My identity is not supposed to cloud my judgement as a reporter — and it doesn’t.
If anything, it has made me a more humane reporter when I handle stories about other vulnerable and marginalized communities. I’ve learned to be more compassionate with my sources and understand a perspective my colleagues may not possess.
Media coverage of Palestine has been a nuanced issue between news outlets, professors and student journalists. How do you cover such a complicated conflict in a 600-word article and deliver that story in a way that hooks and engages your audience?
At the beginning of the conflict, I felt unseen everytime I opened social media or a respected news outlet. The latter surprised me, considering I’ve been taught that a journalist’s duty is to tell the truth. At the time, nothing else was more truthful to me than my community’s suffering.
There were moments where I questioned my role as a journalist and why I wanted to enter an industry that seemingly didn’t care about a Palestinian’s perspective, let alone my own.
In her September 2024 lecture at Carleton, Pacinthe Mattar calls this “The Palestine Exception,” explaining it best when she said there is a fear within newsrooms to report on Palestine. Mattar shared her experience at CBC, where an interview with a Palestinian-American journalist was unaired and pulled without discussion.
She said Canadian news organizations’ language guides prohibit the use of the word “Palestine.”
Over the past year, it’s become more apparent than ever that Palestinian voices and perspectives are underrepresented in the media.
When you’re a journalism student, whose entire curriculum is based on constant news consumption, it’s overwhelming when you see that pattern of underrepresentation repeat itself over and over again.
Mattar’s lecture has pushed me to reflect further on my experiences and what I want for my future. I’ve always believed journalism to be a safe space for the truth to shine through, but I never expected it to turn its back on me.
I have and always will love journalism and everything about it. But entering into an industry where Palestinian journalists are scrutinized for their identity feels like a risk.
Do I water down parts of my identity to pursue a career I’m incredibly passionate about, or do I risk losing credibility in the eyes of media outlets by advocating for my country?
I’m grateful for the space and role I have as a student journalist within my student paper, where we’ve taken on stories and perspectives missing in mainstream media.
All journalists have a sense of curiosity that allows us to find the stories we connect with in some form. But as young people, we have a sense of fearlessness that seems to be lost in the industry.
As a Palestinian-Canadian journalist, I feel most secure in my identity when I’m at my desk with my Charlatan peers. When I’m in my newsroom, a space filled with duck figurines and a foosball table that’s always one loose screw away from falling apart, I’m allowed to talk about these complicated feelings of grief and ambition in the journalism world.
Featured image by Alexa Mackie.
