Posted on Aug 9, 2022
Inside a TV news station determined to report facts in the Taliban's Afghanistan
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https://www.npr.org/2022/08/08/ [login to see] /afghanistan-taliban-media-journalists
Inside a cramped and windowless room at the headquarters of Afghanistan's leading news channel, a group of young editors race against a six o'clock deadline.
One fiddles with the audio for a story on the year-long closure of girls' secondary schools. Another tinkers with the images of Taliban officials at an international conference. They are stories that will be featured in that evening's broadcast from TOLOnews.
When the Taliban returned to power last year, few expected Afghanistan's first 24/7 news channel to survive. The first time the group was in power, in the 1990s, radios mostly carried Islamic programming and propaganda, and TVs were banned. After they were toppled in 2001, the Taliban spent the next couple of decades staging deadly attacks, often against journalists. In 2016, seven TOLO TV employees were killed by a Taliban suicide bomber.
Despite that history, the Taliban have let this democratic institution stand. But every day is a struggle for the journalists who still work there.
Inside a cramped and windowless room at the headquarters of Afghanistan's leading news channel, a group of young editors race against a six o'clock deadline.
One fiddles with the audio for a story on the year-long closure of girls' secondary schools. Another tinkers with the images of Taliban officials at an international conference. They are stories that will be featured in that evening's broadcast from TOLOnews.
When the Taliban returned to power last year, few expected Afghanistan's first 24/7 news channel to survive. The first time the group was in power, in the 1990s, radios mostly carried Islamic programming and propaganda, and TVs were banned. After they were toppled in 2001, the Taliban spent the next couple of decades staging deadly attacks, often against journalists. In 2016, seven TOLO TV employees were killed by a Taliban suicide bomber.
Despite that history, the Taliban have let this democratic institution stand. But every day is a struggle for the journalists who still work there.
Inside a TV news station determined to report facts in the Taliban's Afghanistan
Posted from npr.org
TV
Journalism
Afghanistan
Taliban
Posted 2 y ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
...In spring, the Taliban issued a decree instructing women, including on-camera journalists, to cover their faces in public. The network's female journalists decided they would abide by the order by wearing COVID face masks so they could keep working — and in an act of solidarity, their male colleagues also wore masks on air.
And tonight, they are ready to go on air again.
With minutes to spare before the six o'clock broadcast, a TOLOnews anchor in a sharp navy suit and perfectly coiffed hair settles in behind a desk in the brightly lit studio.
A producer counts down and the broadcast begins. It is a woman who delivers the leading story about the Taliban's participation in an international conference. TOLO's audience may not see her face behind the mask, but they'll hear her voice as she explains where the Taliban's Afghanistan may be headed next."
...In spring, the Taliban issued a decree instructing women, including on-camera journalists, to cover their faces in public. The network's female journalists decided they would abide by the order by wearing COVID face masks so they could keep working — and in an act of solidarity, their male colleagues also wore masks on air.
And tonight, they are ready to go on air again.
With minutes to spare before the six o'clock broadcast, a TOLOnews anchor in a sharp navy suit and perfectly coiffed hair settles in behind a desk in the brightly lit studio.
A producer counts down and the broadcast begins. It is a woman who delivers the leading story about the Taliban's participation in an international conference. TOLO's audience may not see her face behind the mask, but they'll hear her voice as she explains where the Taliban's Afghanistan may be headed next."
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