The Syrian Observer is a daily online news service covering Syrian political and civil society news.
It is dedicated primarily to aggregating and translating into English news content produced by Syria’s official press, opposition groups, activists and civil society.
In addition to translated content, the website publishes original features, op-eds, interviews and blog posts. It also aims at building a Who is Who database of the main actors of the Syrian political and civil society scenes.
The objectives of the Syrian Observer are to provide a better understanding of Syria, to introduce its civil society, popular uprising, civil war and political activity to the outside world, to shed light on how the different parties in the conflict shape their discourse, and to contribute to the advancement of democratic values.
The target audience of the website includes journalists, academics, diplomats, think tanks and all individuals and institutions operating with, and interested in, Syria.
Our choice of stories is necessarily selective although we try to convey as many views as possible. While we do not have the capacity and resources to check the accuracy and soundness of the information reported by the Syrian press, which in the context of a war is necessarily biased and subjective, we try to select the stories based on two main criteria: the (relative) seriousness of the publication and how reflective of the authors’ political positions the story is. However, it is important to keep in mind that The Syrian Observer does not verify the content of the stories translated and that it does not necessarily endorse the viewpoints expressed in the articles.
The Syrian Observer is a donor-funded publication. Our current donors (as of early 2019) are the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. Past donors included International Media Support, a Danish media support organisation.
The publication is editorially and politically independent. Its editor-in-chief is Wael Sawah and its publishing director Jihad Yazigi.
