Ronak trainee Taline Oundjian writes about the challenges faced by local Armenian journalists when telling stories from home to the outside world. Taline has been a journalist for six years. For over two of those years, she covered events in Armenia for international media as a freelance correspondent. While she has never faced insinuations from editors-in-chief that my coverage is unprofessional because of her Armenian heritage, she constantly feels pressured to choose my words carefully for fear of being labelled as biased. “The more I report on this region, the clearer it becomes that covering something so close to me is a precious asset for producing accurate information to an audience typically disconnected from the South Caucasus. My firsthand experience strengthens my credibility. Then again, all I have to do is stick to the facts. I inherently understand the situation here better than any outsider journalist. My deep comprehension of the threats faced by Armenians improves my reporting,” says the Yerevan-based reporter.
