When Truth Itself Becomes a Battlefield

September 23, 2025 – Nepal – 

Across South Asia and Gaza, the act of journalism has shifted from observation to confrontation, where reporters not only document turmoil but become frontline casualties in battles over narrative, survival, and power.

In Bangladesh and Nepal, recent Gen Z-led protests have exposed journalists to attacks from multiple directions. Security forces have infiltrated newsrooms, coerced coverage directives, and threatened reporters to silence dissenting coverage. Meanwhile, protestors have accused the media of aligning with authorities, leaving correspondents trapped in a no-win dynamic: too critical and they are branded traitors, too cautious and they are labeled complicit. Arson attacks on media outlets suggest organized efforts to intimidate rather than spontaneous backlash.

In the besieged Gaza Strip, journalism has become a survival struggle. Reporters covering war crimes, famine, and displacement are themselves starving, weakened, and collapsing midreport. The very tools of their trade — cameras, notebooks — are being traded or sold just to feed their families. Journalists fall into the field of hunger as they document others’ suffering.

The juxtaposition is stark but telling: in South Asia, the fight is over control of narrative and repression of dissent; in Gaza, it is existential, the journalist may die of hunger before being silenced. In both contexts, telling the truth has become an act of defiance, and the journalist is a target, not just a witness.

Both landscapes reveal how journalism is no longer external to conflict — it is embedded in it. The line between the reporter and the subject collapses, and the means of reporting become as vulnerable as the stories themselves. In these zones, wielding a pen or camera is not a neutral act; it is a declaration, a risk, and often a sacrifice.

Reference – 

https://institute.aljazeera.net/en/ajr/article/3358

https://www.borderlens.com/2025/09/23/when-journalism-becomes-a-battlefield/#google_vignette