ARA News

ARA News (Arabic: آرانيوز)
Type of site
 News
Available in Arabic, English[1]
Area served Syria, Turkey, Iraq
Owner unknown
Created by unknown
Editor Adib Abdulmajid, Zachary Singer, Egid Ibrahim
Slogan(s) Pulse of the north (Arabic: نبض الشمال)
Website aranews.org aranews.net
Alexa rank Increase 122,084 (January 2017)[2]
Advertising No
Commercial unknown
Registration None
Launched May 2013 (2013-05)
Current status Active

ARA News (Arabic: آرانيوز‎‎) is an online news service focussed on the consequences of war in Syria and Iraq.[3] Although described as a Kurdish news agency by its director, the site started as an Arabic-only news service and still publishes only in the Arabic and English languages.[1][4]

ARA News has been referenced hundreds of times by other news vendors, and thousands of times in social media.[5][6]

ARA News is supported by Free Press Unlimited, a media development organisation based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Free Press Unlimited mission statement is that 'People deserve to know.’ Free Press Unlimited works to ensure that impartial news and information are and remain available to people across the globe, particularly in countries where there is little to no press freedom. Free Press Unlimited has media projects in approxinmately 40 countries around the world.[7]

Ownership, identity and reliability

ARA News is a member of the Ethical Charter for Syrian Media.[8]

Although the ownership of the ARA News is unpublished, the founder and chief editor is Adib Abdulmajid,[9] a Syrian Kurd who fled Syrian after taking part in pro-democracy activities, and sought asylum in the Netherlands.[3] Reporters and editors of ARA News are named. Most of the staff are Kurdish, some are Arabs.[1]

Name

ARA is an abbreviation of the Kurdish Ajansa Rojnamevaniya Azad, meaning "Independent Press Agency".[10] The Arabic name (Arabic: آرانيوز‎‎) is a simple transliteration of ARA News.

History

ARA News was founded by Adib Abdulmajid in 2013, the website's domain name having been registered in April 2013,[11] and the first news reports were published in June 2013.[4] Abdulmajid, a graduate of Damascus and Tilburg Universities, believed that in Syrian and its region "freedom of expression has been suppressed for decades", and he created ARA News as "a step forward towards free media" in the region.[9][3]

With the aim of developing professional journalism in Syria, in 2014 Free Press Unlimited gave training to editors, news managers and reporters from ARA News.[12]

In 2015 ARA News became one of the first 20 signatories of the Ethical Charter for Syrian Media, an "an alliance of significant independent Syrian media organisations committed to the highest standards of journalism and unimpeded freedom of speech" established under Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency sponsorship.[8][13]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Badran, Yazan; De Angelis, Enrico (1 January 2016). "'Independent' Kurdish Media in Syria" (PDF). Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication. 9 (3): 334–351. doi:10.1163/18739865-00903001.
  2. ↑ "Aranews.org Traffic, Demographics and Competitors - Alexa". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
  3. 1 2 3 "Interview Adib Abdulmajid". Tilburg University.
  4. 1 2 "آرا : ARA News". Internet Archive. Archived from the original on 22 June 2013. Retrieved 22 June 2013.
  5. ↑ "ARA news - Google Search". Google. Retrieved 5 January 2017. About 6,630 results
  6. ↑ "facebook.com aranews - Google Search". Google. Retrieved 5 January 2017. About 55,600 results
  7. ↑ "Our mission". nl:Free Press Unlimited. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
  8. 1 2 "Almethaq Syria Ethical Charter for Syrian Media Alliance". almethaq-sy.org. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  9. 1 2 Svirsky, Meira (11 May 2016). "Adib Abdulmajid: Building Free Media in War Torn Iraq & Syria". Clarion Project.
  10. ↑ "About us". ARA News. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
  11. ↑ "Domain aranews.org whois lookup". Uanic.name. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
  12. ↑ "Developing Professional Journalism in Syria". Free Press Unlimited. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  13. ↑ "Ethical Journalism for Syria Alliance". Free Press Unlimited. 2015. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.