Fireside chat with Rana Sabbagh

A fireside chat with Rana Sabbagh, an Arab woman who introduced the unknown culture of investigative journalism into the largely autocratic, male-dominated MENA region.
Rana Sabbagh’s four-decade devotion to the craft of journalism and the impact of her work and career on the region’s media environment made her the first Arab recipient of the prestigious International Center for Journalists’ (ICFJ) King Trailblazer Award 2024. The ICFJ said they selected Sabbagh from among hundreds of nominations because of “her contribution to the highest-quality journalism, the impact of her work and the standards she has set and maintained for media in her region and around the world.”
Rana is co-founder and the first executive director of the Amman-based Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) 2006-2019. Through ARIJ, she trained over 4,000 journalists, media professors and students on the basics of accountability journalism. She mentored over 600 journalists to produce hard-hitting investigations for local, regional and international media which won many awards for excellence. In 2020 she joined the award-winning OCCRP as editor for the MENA region .
Rana is the only woman to become editor-in-chief of a political daily in the Levant, running the Jordan Times from 1999-2002, before being fired for refusing to toe the official line. She and her colleagues have taken great risks to advance the culture of “accountability journalism”. In the last 16 months, three of her mentees were forced to flee their countries (Iraq, Sudan, Yemen). Her phone has been hacked at least six times with the NSO Pegasus virus. She has been elected for four rounds to the board of the Global Investigative Journalism Network, representing MENA.
In this fireside chat, the focus will be on the critical need to speak out for press freedom, to continue reporting in the face of political threats, and to serve society by holding the powerful to account.
Rana Sabbagh will be interviewed by Alia Ibrahim.