‘Not a mouthpiece of the regime’: Syria’s state news agency enters new era
Share:
Journalists and broadcasters at Sana wait for ‘actions, not words’ but look to future after fall of Assad government. Zyad Mahameed finally has the job he always wanted. In his previous role in the media team for the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, he often thought about the Syrian state news agency – an Assad regime mouthpiece he considered his opposition – and what he would do if he was in charge there. Now he is.
![[Zyad Mahameed sits at his dark wooden desk while a colleague stands on; he is writing with pen and paper and notebooks and a file of paper documents are on the table, though there is a computer screen too. Curtains are drawn behind the men. ]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/92d359826798179b900d0ac78e8cb85441dbefde/0_0_4000_2400/master/4000.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
As an appointee of the HTS-led caretaker government, his position is at present temporary but his plans for the Syrian Arab News Agency (Sana) stretch far into the future. “The short-term goal here is to retrain the journalists and have real, professional staff,” Mahameed said. “The long-term goal is to make Sana a proper international news agency. It can be a governmental agency, sure – but not a mouthpiece of the regime.”.
![[Houssam Hijazi]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/2e82b3d2357a18c646c8cd44311aa81d64a9ccf9/0_207_3612_2167/master/3612.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
The 32-year-old, who had grown accustomed to producing slick drone videos and documentaries in rebel-held Idlib, was shocked to arrive in Damascus and find the agency using computers with decades-old software. The Damascus bureau had just two ageing video-cameras, he said. He wants to change things, and fast.
![[Mazen Eyoun sits at a small circular stone-topped table in a cafe in Damascus. He is middle-aged with short, greying hair and moustache and wears a black anorak and dark red jumper. Shisha pipes are lined up behind him. ]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/419b52b31629e4578a5b2d69351f259fbd21a1fc/0_206_4000_2400/master/4000.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
But whether this rebooted agency could eventually be able to publish criticism of Syria’s new transitional government led by HTS remains in question. “We don’t know yet. We can neither confirm nor deny,” Mahameed said, with a cryptic smile. A longtime Sana journalist, Mazen Eyoun, described his employer of over two decades as “the tongue of the government”. The Assad regime was well versed in propaganda: in addition to state mouthpieces like Sana and television channels that called dissidents terrorists, the former dictatorship had increasingly looked to sympathetic influencers and bloggers in an effort to massage its image.
