Syria: the war and before

This chapter covers the journey from the rise of investigative journalism in the Arab world more generally to the start of investigative reporting in Syria specifically before and during the conflict. This is based on the observation of training sessions; ARIJ Forum discussions from 2015–2019 and interviews with trainers, reporters, editors and board members of various organisations involved. Training in investigative reporting is still relatively new in Syria, and a lot of the skills that are used are either improvised on the spot or self taught. However, when training is provided, there are also some issues in the delivery of training because a traditional way of teaching is more common in the region. The practice of investigative journalism has its separate set of challenges to that of training, although there are commonalities.