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We tell the stories powerful interests would rather see buried. Real independence means doing the work even when it’s inconvenient, and that work survives only because readers choose to sustain it.
Dear Readers,
When we launched Middle East Uncovered this past March, we weren’t trying to add more noise to an already loud media landscape. We wanted to create space for clarity. For stories too nuanced, too uncomfortable, or too easily dismissed to find a home elsewhere. We wanted to tell the stories that mainstream media can’t—or won’t—touch.
That goal feels even more urgent now. Reporting from the Middle East has always required courage, care, and precision, but in today’s climate, it also demands independence—the freedom to pursue truth without interference, agenda, or ideological framing.
We believe in that freedom. And we believe it’s worth protecting.
Many of the journalists, contributors, and sources who bring Middle East Uncovered to life work in conditions that are rarely simple and often dangerous. They report from places where freedom of expression isn’t the norm, where a byline can be a liability, and where accessing information comes with real risk.
We have access to sources that took years of trust-building to obtain. They count on us to, in some cases, keep their identities hidden to ensure their safety. To tell the truth on their behalf because they aren’t able to do so themselves. All of them operate with a shared conviction: that the truth in all its complexity deserves to be told, and that readers can be trusted to grapple with it.
Their reporting has taken us into hidden classrooms for girls in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. It has traced the resistance of a Syrian translator who refused to betray his colleagues. It has illuminated the lives of reformers, exiles, and thinkers whose stories too often remain untranslated or unseen in Western media.
We were the first American media outlet to break the story of Russia buying Iraqi soldiers to power its war machine. And we went viral in Iraq because of it, drawing the ire and attention of high-level politicians who would seek to squash the truth.
These are just a few examples of the vital work we do. And it takes time. It takes trust. And it takes resources.
Middle East Uncovered operates without the backing of large institutions, advertisers, or political patrons. That independence allows us to ask harder questions and publish stories that others might shy away from. But it also means we rely entirely on our readers to sustain this work.
Every subscription, every donation, directly funds the reporting you read here—paying journalists fairly, covering translation and verification costs, and ensuring that our contributors can continue doing their work safely and responsibly.
Independent journalism is a practice that requires commitment from both sides of the page: those who write, and those who choose to read and support.
When you become a paid subscriber, you’re not buying access to a product; we rarely paywall our work because we believe in the importance of telling these stories widely and openly. When you subscribe, you’re investing in a process. You’re helping to keep a space open for complexity, for curiosity, and for the kind of reporting that refuses to fit neatly into prewritten narratives.
Your support allows us to remain free from political influence, to commission deeper investigations, and to give a platform to voices often excluded from mainstream conversations about the Middle East.
And we don’t just give you the negative. If you rely on mainstream media alone to understand the region, you probably think of perpetual war, oppression, censorship, and violence. That is a caricature that grossly underestimates the will of the people working tirelessly to improve their societies. We cover the positive stories, too.
From the innovators in Iraqi Kurdistan building sustainable farms with hydroponics and AI, to the artists in Sulaymaniyah transforming abandoned factories into spaces for free expression, to the women in Lebanon and Afghanistan rebuilding lives and communities against impossible odds—we believe these stories deserve airtime. We’re not interested in trauma porn for entertainment’s sake, sweeping stereotypes that reinforce prejudices, or in overlooking the tangible good unfolding across the region every day.
We bring you the good, the bad, and the ugly, and we do so with the care and compassion each story deserves. Then we have the confidence in you, the reader, to do the rest.
This is journalism built on trust between writers and readers, between those living the story and those trying to understand it.
If you’ve read our work and found value in it—if it’s challenged you, moved you, or helped you see something familiar in a new way—we’re asking for your help to keep it going.
Become a paid subscriber. Share our stories. Tell others that this kind of reporting still matters.
Your contribution ensures that we can continue to publish freely, fearlessly, and with the integrity that this region and its people deserve.
With gratitude,
Reid Newton
Editor, Middle East Uncovered
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