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We caught up with Yara El Murr, winner of the Young Journalist Award 2023, to find out how her life has changed since scooping the main prize for her investigation: ‘Intercepted At Sea’, a three-part series examining the human cost of border enforcement in Lebanon.
Following her move from Beirut to Toronto, she explains how she keeps in touch with issues back home, shares her passion for a new role mentoring young local journalists and tells how the Thomson-sponsored trip to London led to an exciting career opportunity.
You’ve swapped Beirut for Toronto, why the change?
There are many challenges working as a journalist in Lebanon because you are living all the issues and crises that you're reporting on. It was very hard to take care of myself mentally and physically. I was spending time with many people who were going through really hard times, while at home I also had to struggle wondering do I have electricity today? Do I have running water? We take these things for granted but they really bring down your morale and productivity. Also, a lot of the issues we reported on at The Public Source* brought about safety and security concerns because we were doing uncompromising journalism that was critical of the authorities.
How do you keep in touch with issues back home?
Despite being physically far from Beirut, a lot of my work still focuses on the Middle East and what's happening in Palestine and I'm still connected to the region with some of the projects I'm doing from here. It was a very tough decision to leave, but I feel that one of the main goals in my career is still to do public service journalism for my community wherever I am.
Is there a Lebanese community in Toronto?
I think there’s more Lebanese living abroad than there are in the country because we're in the middle of a huge crisis. I have a very nice Lebanese community here, many that also recently immigrated to Toronto. It's really great to have gatherings where you speak Arabic, eat Lebanese food and it just feels like a mini version of home away from home.
You recently started mentoring local young journalists, tell us about that.
I am working at The Green Line Toronto* on a pilot project with 15 to 28-year-olds and we're training them in community reporting. I spent a month teaching them the basics of video interviewing, editing and writing skills. And now throughout the summer, I will be mentoring them on producing their own stories about their community - it's one in Toronto that receives very little media attention and when it does, it's mostly about crime or homelessness. So really, it's a project to help the youth drive better media coverage. It's my first-time teaching and I found that it's such a beautiful thing to empower other young aspiring journalists.
How has winning the Young Journalist Award impacted your career?
It's really helped me forge a network of connections that have been really helpful. For example, we visited the Guardian newsroom and met editors who I've been in touch with since. I have written several articles, including one about Palestinian-Canadians trying to get their loved ones out of Gaza (https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/mar/13/canada-gaza-outrage-faulty-visa-program). It was the first article coming out of Canada that really pointed out how the (Canadian) government’s visa programme was failing. The piece really sparked outrage and I don't want to take all the credit, but I’ve seen it used by a lot of rights organisations to advocate and push for more to be done.
What was it like meeting the other YJA finalists in London?
We shared the experiences of being women journalists in countries where we have much less support and less resources. We are all writing stories with the hope of driving an impact in countries that lack the mechanisms to hold governments accountable. The three of us talked about the challenges at our newsrooms and in our countries. I think we were each other's biggest cheerleaders in that sense, trying to just encourage and cheer on one other for the stories that we've done. Also, we are all young journalists at a different stage of our careers, so we sort of saw ourselves in each other and that was something really beautiful.
Why is it important that the Young Journalist Award champions journalists from countries with a GNI under US$20k?
A lot of the time, stories that go viral are from international outlets coming into these countries and reporting about the crisis that they are going through. We don't hear a lot from the people in their localities with all of the nuances that a journalist living through these conditions can bring. I think the inclusion of young journalists from countries with a GNI under US$20k, is really empowering. Many of us come with a lot of self-doubt and imposter syndrome but (the award) really proves that our work is as worthy and even though we don't have the same resources, it doesn't mean we aren’t able to produce stories that are as impactful, or as important, to the global discourse.
What are your plans for the future?
There are a lot of opportunities to go in so many different directions, whether that's continuing with writing investigations or to pivot a bit more into documentary work. I don't see myself in just one place, and I'm really interested in experimenting with different kinds of media. There are so many things I want to write about and make documentaries on. For now, I’m in Canada but I'm still attached to Lebanon and I'm still following the stories, writing about the region and am involved in projects. However, I am also trying to make space for being here in Toronto and doing journalism for the local community that I'm part of now. I think ultimately, it's going to be a balance of both.
*The Public Source is a Beirut-based independent media organisation.