Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s veteran Middle East editor, once offered a deceptively simple formula for surviving the moral challenges of conflict reporting. A journalist, he said, can be both neutral and candid. In a region where truth is often held hostage by governments, militias and armies of citizen journalists, Bowen’s formula reads less like professional advice and more like a code of honour.

Bowen is no passing correspondent. Audiences across the Arab world have watched him cover the Lebanese wars, the Israeli invasion of Beirut, the Gulf conflict, the war in Bosnia, and the conflict in Gaza. He has been banned by Israel and denied entry to Iran — an unintended endorsement of his insistence on seeing things for himself. When he says that neutrality and candour are not luxuries, but costly commitments, he speaks from decades of experience.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Bowen reflected on the constraints he faced in the former Yugoslavia. Compared with Gaza, he said, those restrictions ‘felt like paradise’. Then came the line that distils his entire career: ‘If you’re not trying to tell the truth, what’s the point?’

Bowen reflected on the constraints he faced in the former Yugoslavia. Compared with Gaza, he said, those restrictions ‘felt like paradise’. Then came the line that distils his entire career: ‘If you’re not trying to tell the truth, what’s the point?’

Bowen reflected on the constraints he faced in the former Yugoslavia. Compared with Gaza, he said, those restrictions ‘felt like paradise’. Then came the line that distils his entire career: ‘If you’re not trying to tell the truth, what’s the point?’

In much of the Arab world, the idea of neutrality is a myth, not a professional standard. State media prioritises loyalty over accuracy. Party media demands alignment over facts. Private media demands silence above all else. A journalist navigating this terrain is not rewarded for neutrality or candour; he is punished for both.

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In this context, Bowen’s equation becomes an ethical luxury, even an act of personal risk. Yet it remains valuable precisely because it reminds Arab journalists that the truth does not belong to governments, political parties or financiers. Candour is not a betrayal of neutrality; it is neutrality in a world drowning in propaganda.

The deeper tragedy is that many Arab newsrooms do not ask their journalists to be neutral; they ask them to be obedient. They do not want witnesses; they want people to act as prosecutors. Truth becomes whatever the authority of the day declares it to be. Therefore, the crisis is not the absence of neutrality, but the criminalisation of candour.

Arab journalism did not fail because it was weak. It failed because it abandoned its original purpose of holding power to account. A press that does not question becomes an administrative appendage. A journalist who cannot tell the truth becomes complicit in deception.

Bowen’s formula exposes the moral fragility of the region’s media landscape. It poses a terrifyingly simple question: Can you tell the truth without trembling? And can you remain neutral without betraying your conscience? Many masks fall at that threshold.

Early in the Gaza war, senior diplomats told Bowen that allowing him — or Christiane Amanpour — into the Strip might ease the diplomatic crisis. The implication is chilling: the presence of two uncompromising journalists could alter political outcomes. In the Arab world, however, the presence of one such journalist usually alters only one thing: their career trajectory, and not for the better.

Bowen often says that the real danger lies not in the physical risk, but in “what they don’t want you to see”. This could serve as a subtitle for the entire history of Arab media.

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Ultimately, this is not a comparison between a British correspondent and his Arab counterparts. Rather, it is a reminder that, at its core, journalism is not a profession, but a conscience. Conscience does not operate on government budgets or donor contracts. It does not negotiate. Without candour, the press becomes a party bulletin. Without neutrality, the press becomes a propaganda leaflet. The narrow strip between the two is where Bowen stands — where journalism still resembles what it was meant to be.

Bowen is no saint, and the BBC is no temple of purity. The corporation has long been criticised for its proximity to political power, from Iraq to Gaza. But Bowen remains a useful example in an age starved of them.

Truth becomes whatever the authority of the day declares it to be. Therefore, the crisis is not the absence of neutrality, but the criminalisation of candour.

Truth becomes whatever the authority of the day declares it to be. Therefore, the crisis is not the absence of neutrality, but the criminalisation of candour.

Today, Arab journalists face three walls: the state, the party and the financier. But the most suffocating barrier is internal: fear. They fear losing their jobs, angering ministers, upsetting funders and being dragged through orchestrated smear campaigns. This fear makes Bowen’s formula seem impossible. Yet its value lies in reminding journalists that surrender is not destiny and that the truth dies only when they stop trying to tell it.

Neutrality and candour are not opposing choices. They are two sides of the same coin — the coin of journalism that has not yet been counterfeited. In a region where truth has been trampled underfoot by those in power, the journalist who insists on speaking out performs an act of resistance. This is a form of resistance that requires no weapon, only a conscience that refuses to be bought..

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

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