Welcome to Brave New Media – a global podcast featuring journalists and editors from around the world telling their stories as we explore what can be done to ensure we have a healthier media ecosystem. In each episode, a specialist will dig deep into the issues uncovered by our Brave New Media outlets, and offer solutions.

In this episode, we meet Diana Moukalled, one of the founders of Daraj, meaning 'Steps' in Arabic. Her brainchild is a Beirut-based, Arabic-language digital platform, charting a new path through one of the world’s most polarised and censored media landscapes.

Diana Moukallad’s brainchild is the Beirut-based digital platform, Daraj, meaning steps in Arabic. 

Diana describes her disillusionment with the heavily polarised media landscape in Lebanon and how she gave up her career as a high-profile TV journalist to create her own media start-up. Her struggle to acquire business skills and financing offers powerful insights into the challenges of attaining financial stability while remaining independent. 

Responding to Diana’s story is Professor Naomi Sakr, former journalist and author of several authoritative works on media in the Arab world. She reflects on Diana’s story and offers ideas and strategies for how to build financial viability without compromising editorial integrity.

A transcript is available on the Brave New Media homepage or here: shorturl.at/lrtV0

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More information on Daraj:

Daraj is a pan-Arab digital platform that was launched in 2017.  It covers under-reported topics such as women and minority rights, the environment and climate change, corruption, and freedom of belief and expression. It publishes mainly in Arabic and translates some if its content to English. 

Daraj is based in Beirut with a core team of 18 - 20  persons supported by a network of writers, journalists and partners, spread across the world. You can find them all listed on the website.  

Daraj is able to generate approximately 25% of their revenue from subsidiary activities like their production arm and training,  with the rest coming from international funders. With the funding they have at present, they produce 7-8 pieces of content a day but their ambition is to grow larger.

Daraj has an audience reach of 100,000 per month on its platforms and over 60% of them are females.    The majority (45%) of its audience is under 34 and around 35% is between 35-54. 

The largest number of its audience is based in Egypt, Saudi Arabia,  Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan with the rest distributed across the Middle East and in countries with large Arab diaspora (United States, Germany and United Arab Emirates). 

https://daraj.com/

https://www.instagram.com/darajmedia/

https://www.facebook.com/darajmedia

https://twitter.com/Daraj_media

https://www.youtube.com/c/DarajMedia

Brave New Media is presented by Maha Taki and is A Holy Mountain Production, produced by Saskia Black, for BBC Media Action - the BBC's international charity. To contact us, email: media.action@bbc.co.uk

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