“We are the only TV broadcasting exclusively for Aleppo,” says the head of newly minted Aleppo Today in this interesting CNN piece aired today.
But what the CNN reporter didn’t ask is: how could a city of over 2 million people not have a TV station?
In fact most major cities throughout Syria lack established local media outlets and are thus largely deprived of local news and, more importantly, local journalism.
Like many Arab countries, Syrian television and media resources are largely state-owned and have always been based in the capital, virtually ignoring major swaths of the country.
But all this is changing with the emergence of dozens of multi-platform new media outlets across Syria, employing hundreds of citizen journalists. See my recent piece in Bold Magazine for an in-depth look at the rise of both local and hyperlocal news in Syria and what it could mean for the broader regional media landscape.
