Ghaith Abdul-Ahad profiled

[video:youtube:JoOmquaRCx8] Menassat, an organisation that promotes good journalism in the Middle East and North Africa, begins a new series profiling arab journalists. Lebanon-based Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, who writes and photographs for The Guardian and has twice been shortlisted for best foreign correspondent of the year by the British Press Awards, is first up,

“I think rule number one is that you go to a place and you try to learn… The way i see it, you don’t get extra credit because you understand the people, or because you understand the language. It’s not necessarily a positive thing to be coming from a certain region if you’re covering that region. […] And I don’t think that the best people covering the Middle East are [necessarily] from the Middle East.” link

Click the video above to see Ghaith talking at the Frontline Club event in New York City. Or listen to him take part in a lengthy discussion with Kael Alford and Thorne Anderson about working as a photojournalist in Iraq at the Frontline Club in London.