Free Media is a media platform affiliated with the Free Media Organization for Investigative Journalism, which seeks to enhance the methodology of investigative work in order to create a new future for Yemeni journalism. Free Media focuses its efforts on digging into journalistic stories on a high level impact, giving priority to the quality of the materials published on its pages rather than focusing on their quantity or completion speed.
Our focus is on issues that affect our society in all sectors, health, education, development, security, justice, human rights, women issues, environment, climate change, and corruption issues.
We rely on ‘careful journalism’ based on interviews, fieldwork and research based on verified sources. Free Media Stories seek to go far in digging up phenomena in order to answer two central questions: how and why. The ultimate goal of this type of journalism, which is rare in the Arab world and particularly in Yemen, is to serve the public interest by providing deep and accurate narratives that reduce the unprecedented reliance on opinion-based articles and analysis.
Free Media stories are based on the ‘journalism in the field’ rule. They are edited to the highest ethical and professional journalistic standards and represent the essence of the efforts of the Free Media Center’s journalists, human rights defenders and technicians. They are not a gathering of information from other sites.
Free Media focuses on clarifying the relationships and patterns of Yemen-related phenomena and events regardless of where they occur around the world. Ensuring that we do not compromise in adhering to the journalistic principles that guide our work: balance, objectivity, accuracy and serving the common good
Our mission:
Free Media believes that Yemen is decades behind establishing a tradition of investigative journalism, so we aspire to play a role in embodying a realistic model of the effects that independent investigative journalism represents on making a change. Hoping to reduce reliance on Western experiences as a source of inspiration and learning in journalistic work.
Free Media believes in the necessity of changing the Yemeni media reality which is represented by the absence of professional investigative journalistic work in favor of the dominance of the press that relies on political funding which rules the work of the mainstream Arab media institutions, and relies on reports, rapid follow-ups and opinion
Our Goals:
1: Strengthening :
The concept of opinion and expression freedom, the principles of transparency and accountability for the protection of human rights based on international conventions and local legislation in force. .
2- enhancing :
– The culture and methodology of investigative work in order to create a new future for Yemeni journalism
– Investigative journalists’ skills, abilities and experience through training, qualification and experiences exchange.
-An organization of integrity values, transparent principles and accountability systems in managing the public affairs and protecting the public interest
3-integration
- Integration with professional civil society institutions to create a professional media reality that works to protect human rights, make peace, fight corruption, achieve accountability, and protect the public interest
Our Values:
We work to make our journalistic content a reason to create a change on the ground instead of waiting for this change to happen. Making sure not to be complacent and to adhere to the journalistic values and principles that guide our work, which are
Truth and accuracy despite the difficulties and obstacles that prevent access to the full truth. We are keen to get and verify information and data; a fundamental value that we seek.
Neutrality and integrity we are committed to neutrality in our activities without bias, away from private interests, whether political, commercial or cultural
Not to harm We adhere to the principle of not to harm in all our activities and journalistic contents
Media literacy Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to receive news and ideas. The right to access information is a fundamental right of the individual and the group to know what is happening around them
Differentiating between facts and opinions The reader should always be able to know texts contents which express the personal opinion of the source, and those that seek to convey information objectively
human rights We believe in the importance of respecting human rights as inherent rights in all human beings, regardless of their nationality, place of residence, gender, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, language or any other status
Inclusiveness and fairness are achieved by telling all the information and facts related to the story, and journalists do not hide their bias behind words and sentences
Our Journalistic Creed:
We believe in journalism.
We believe that journalists should write the news they check themselves.
We believe that checking the information validity is the responsibility of the journalist .
We believe that a journalist should not write about something that he cannot say as a gentleman.
We believe that journalism is self-censored, it respects its readers, reveals the truth and works for the good of people.
We believe that the highest test of good journalism is a measure to know the level of public service it provides to the public.
We believe that the truth has one criterion which is to reveal it professionally to the public.
We believe that suppressing news for any considerations other than the well-being of society is unjustified.
We believe that specialized authorities are based on the public trust. We work with full responsibility, and any public service provided by the authorities that is less than the service level the public deserves is a betrayal of this trust