Kurdistan Region Media: An Abundance of Platforms and an Absence of Journalism

The media crisis in the Kurdistan Region does not lie in a shortage of platforms and institutions, but rather in a quantitative inflation matched by a clear contraction in professional journalism. When the Region possesses approximately 1,700 media outlets—more than 90 percent of which are directly or indirectly linked to political parties or influential figures—we are not necessarily facing true media pluralism, but rather an inflation in the number of platforms that is not matched by a similar independence in performance and function.

Media pluralism is not measured by the number of channels, websites, and radio stations, but rather by their ability to hold authority accountable, expose flaws, and investigate files that influential parties do not wish to see light. The true measure of journalism’s vitality is not the number of screens, but the number of investigations that disturbed powerful individuals and compelled them to provide answers to the public.

From here the story begins. What can be termed “alleyway media” did not necessarily arise from weak journalistic skills alone, but from a media economy that reshaped the profession’s priorities. When political and financial interests control the conditions of media production, sensationalism becomes more profitable than investigation, personal stories more attractive than analysis, and loyalty safer than accountability.

A professional news report relies on three interconnected levels: what happened, why it happened, and what consequences might follow. As for a segment of the mainstream media in the Region, this function has shrunk to a single question: does the content generate views and guarantee ongoing engagement? Because of this, incidents of murder, domestic violence, brawls, infidelity, and personal disputes have been turned into media material ready for consumption. In many cases, producing this material does not require a field reporter, reliable documents, or judicial follow-up; rather, a mobile phone recording, an emotional commentary, and a heated guest intervention are sufficient to transform the incident into shareable content for hours, and perhaps for days.

The problem here is not in covering crime, as this is part of the media’s function, but rather in stopping at the incident and failing to move toward analyzing the phenomenon. A single murder crime may turn into repeated episodes of discussion and showmanship, while the causes related to domestic violence, poverty, addiction, and social breakdown do not find a similar space for research and analysis. This is the difference between journalism that deals with an event as a gateway to understanding reality, and media that deals with it as material for consumption. An event can be reported quickly, whereas a phenomenon requires numbers, context, comparisons, experts, and continuous follow-up—elements that cannot be compensated for by an open studio lacking a specialized newsroom.

This issue reached a level that required official intervention. In March 2025, the Public Prosecution in Sulaymaniyah addressed media outlets with an official letter calling on them not to cover murder incidents before the completion of investigations, after noticing that some channels were presenting details of cases and conducting interviews with victims’ relatives, thereby preempting judicial procedures and influencing public opinion. Media expert Nazakat Hussein described this problem clearly, noting that some media outlets in the Region settle cases before courts rule on them, and present the details of incidents to the public in a manner that makes them resemble a parallel media trial.

One of the striking results of declining trust in media institutions is the transfer of a portion of public trust from the institution to the individual who appears on its screen. When a channel loses its credibility due to its political and financial affiliations, the presenter becomes the brand, not the institution. From here, we understand how some program hosts have transformed into national or patriotic figures in the public consciousness, transcending the boundaries of journalistic duty to a position of emotional and political representation of the public.

However, this symbolic status carries another contradiction. The trust that a presenter builds over years of national or patriotic discourse can easily turn into commercial capital. A figure presenting themselves as a voice for societal issues may appear the next day marketing real estate, a fragrance, or a commercial product, without a clear separation between their media position and their advertising interest. Commercial advertising in itself is not the problem; rather, the problem lies in the absence of boundaries between analysis and promotion, and between professional trust and personal interest. A presenter who invests their public standing in marketing is required to be clear and transparent, just as a journalist is required to separate information, stance, and interest.

What is more dangerous is that this personalization can turn into a means of shielding oneself from criticism. Instead of public trust being an incentive to adhere to professional standards, it sometimes becomes a tool to defend errors and personal stances. Here, the difference emerges between a journalist who derives legitimacy from independence and the ability to hold power accountable, and a populist leader who derives authority from the loyalty of supporters. This phenomenon also leads to exempting the institution from its responsibility: the channel makes a mistake and the error is attributed to the presenter, or the presenter makes a mistake and their audience steps in to defend them, while the institution remains without an independent editorial board or a clear ethical reference. Thus, professional responsibility shifts from an institutional commitment to a personal relationship between the media figure and their audience.

The losses resulting from unprofessional crime coverage can be identified across three interconnected levels. The first is legal, manifested in the violation of the presumption of innocence and the transformation of media outlets into parallel courts that issue rulings before the judiciary. The Minister of Interior himself warned against some media outlets playing the roles of the police, public prosecution, and forensic doctor, and against conducting direct interviews with perpetrators or suspects, due to the potential consequences of justifying the crime or influencing the public’s understanding of it. The media is not a criminal investigation authority and does not possess the mandate to issue judgments; rather, its function is to convey reliable information, monitor institutional performance, and defend the public interest, while respecting judicial independence and guarantees of a fair trial.

The second level is social, as crime transforms from an incident requiring understanding and accountability into entertainment material for public consumption. The victim and their family become subjects of discussion, and privacy is violated under the guise of media scoops. Furthermore, the culture of shame and social stigma is reproduced through the focus on personal and family details instead of analyzing the conditions that produced the phenomenon. This effect extends to the image of Kurdish society itself: when news of crime, violence, and scandals dominates media content, society appears as if it were a society of incidents and crises, while the image of its cultural, scientific, economic, and institutional achievements recedes. This does not mean hiding problems or beautifying reality, but rather rejecting the transformation of individual cases into an overarching narrative that reduces an entire society.

The third level is cognitive. Repeated incidents are not merely isolated news items, but indicators of structural problems that require social, psychological, legal, and statistical study. Here, the function of serious journalism is to provide numbers and context, seek the help of specialists, and move from raising emotional questions to producing knowledge that helps society understand its problems. In this context, initiatives undertaken by specialized Kurdish organizations to monitor media content and document professional violations and privacy rights represent an important step, but they are not sufficient on their own unless coupled with institutional reform within the media outlets themselves.

Overcoming this crisis cannot be achieved through moral sermons or training courses alone. The problem transcends the skills of journalists to the nature of the institutions in which they work, their sources of funding, and the entities that control their editorial decisions. Reform requires adopting clear professional protocols for covering crime that prevent the publication of photos of bodies and shocking scenes, protect the names and privacy of victims’ relatives, and avoid interviewing suspects in ways that influence investigations, while committing to following the case until the judicial ruling is issued and correcting prior information when necessary.

It also requires establishing specialized departments for social and legal affairs within newsrooms, instead of assigning complex cases to program hosts who lack proper training. The partnership between media institutions and universities should be strengthened so that similar incidents are transformed into joint research topics rather than repeated episodes that exploit human suffering to generate views. It is also essential to adopt declared policies for correcting errors, establish independent mechanisms to receive public complaints, and activate editorial boards that protect journalistic decision-making from the interference of the owner or funder, for an institution that cannot hold itself accountable cannot exercise accountability over others.

Yet the most critical condition remains the transparency of ownership and funding. There can be no talk of journalistic independence amidst the ambiguity surrounding the sources of money and the political and commercial relationships that control media institutions. Disclosure of ownership and funding, along with the separation of advertising from editorial content, must be an essential part of the rules regulating media work. Likewise, the measure of success must be changed so that an institution’s value is not reduced to view counts and engagement rates, but is instead measured by the quality of its investigations, the accuracy of its information, and its ability to expose institutional flaws and influence public policy. Hence, the importance of supporting investigative journalism through independent and transparent funding—far removed from party budgets and direct interests—becomes clear.

Media in the Kurdistan Region does not suffer from a technical crisis so much as a crisis in the structure of ownership, funding, and governance. When the funder is himself the party with political interest, and when the institution becomes an extension of the owner’s influence, the possibility of accountability recedes, and sensational content, personalization, and cheap advertising become more viable than independent professional journalism. The media crisis is not a lack of expertise or equipment, but lies in the question that precedes all of that: who owns the institution, who funds it, and who determines what may be published and what must be kept silent?

Therefore, true reform does not begin with a training course in journalistic writing, but with three indispensable institutional conditions: transparency of ownership and funding, an independent editorial body capable of protecting professional decision-making, and a judiciary that protects both the journalist and individual rights together. Independent media is not media above accountability, and protecting press freedom does not mean granting it the right to violate people’s privacy or pass judgments on behalf of the judiciary; rather, it means building an institution capable of telling the truth and holding power accountable, without turning into an unaccountable power itself.

Unless this structure changes, platforms will continue to multiply while journalism contracts, and screens will remain crowded with voices yet impoverished in investigations. At that point, the problem will not be the absence of media from society, but the absence of journalism from the media.