As journalists, our north star is transparency and honesty. So here’s the truth: Iran War Dispatches — telling human-interest stories from the ongoing war in Iran — didn’t land the way we thought it would.
Garnering support for our reporting has proven more challenging than usual, and, as independent journalists, reader support is all we’ve got.
We set up in Armenia within 24 hours of the war’s start on February 28, hoping to get information out from a country where the government does everything it can to crush independent journalism.
Reporting on Iran was an exercise in trust-building, empathy, and determination.
Our work, talking to farmers in the south of Iran facing oil-infused black rain, campers on Hormuz Island in the heart of the strait, and citizens of Tehran whose homes were destroyed by missiles, gave you a window into the human cost of this war that the daily headlines don’t capture. We sent a reporter to Iraq to cover the impact of the war on the Kurdish population.
We’re not done covering Iran and the Middle East!
Our sister publication, The Counteroffensive, which is headquartered in Kyiv, Ukraine, will keep bringing you the same kind of human-interest reporting from this region and beyond. Subscribe for free today, and our war reporting will land right in your inbox!
We care about this project and about you, our readers. Independent war reporting is hard, but what makes it challenging is what makes it absolutely essential.
If you believe this kind of independent, on-the-ground reporting is worth fighting for, we hope you’ll consider leaving us a contribution in our tip jar. Every bit of support helps us keep telling the stories that might otherwise go unheard.
Stay safe out there.
Best,
Tim Mak
So I see that you're not officially doing the newsletter anymore, but on August 29, there is an article, so will you still do some articles here and there?