By: Chloe Werner

Journalist Humayoon Babur has been a reporter for ten years. But his experiences in the field is a striking contrast from those of most American journalists. 

In May 2019, Mr. Babur left his homeland of Afghanistan for a stay in the United States where he is staying through August. Coming from a country stewing in a mixing bowl of international conflict, he has reported amongst civil war, unrest, and viciously enforced media restrictions. 

The conflict in Afghanistan began with a Soviet communist presence, which the United States tried to counter by funneling money and weapons into a rebel group called the Freedom Fighters. Over time, militant groups grew and engaged in a struggle for power which heavily afflicted Afghanistan, one such group being the Taliban. When Taliban member Osama Bin Laden led the infamous 9/11 terrorist attack on the United States, The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), swore to defeat Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban. Though in theory the U.S successfully took them down and set in place a democratic election system, the Taliban still exists and rises throughout Afghanistan. U.S troops remain in Afghanistan, and the country’s citizens still suffer from continued warfare, mismanaged money, enemies to the media, and a corrupt government and justice system. 

“Many Afghans grew up with war . . . and then we experience civil war, and we move from one province to another province to get some guards, security, some kind of safety,” said Babur.

Babur had been able to attend high school during the Taliban regime, which offered enough stability for him to benefit from the education system. After graduating in 2003, he attended Kabul University, one of the country’s most historic universities. It was here, he explained, that he began to develop an understanding of writing and reporting, and after graduating from it, got his first job at Killid-Radio. He was soon reporting on the front lines in Northern Afghanistan, maneuvering the new and challenging field of reporting on the military with his friend and colleague Abdullh Sahia. “This is really a necessity, when you’re going to a conflict zone, you should understand [the situation],” he said. “But we were without any knowledge or any experience.”

For journalists and reporters in Afghanistan, the risks are high. The government, mafia, and militant groups place heavy restrictions on the media, and the price for a controversial article is high. Mr. Babur explained how in 2015, fifteen skilled journalists and colleagues had lost their lives at the hands of ISIS, the Islamic State. “Journalism in battlefields and front lines is quite difficult, [compared to] when you sit in a very secure room and you work,” he said. “What you’re doing as a journalist, there’s things you don’t know like, ‘who’s my enemy?’ ‘By whom I will [I] ‘get it?’’”

Despite the dangers of the field, Babur was pulled into journalism by a persistent want to help people. “We are an instrument to connect ordinary people, and their stories should be delivers and conveyed to the officials . . . and then they can find some solution,” he said. “And this is the only way I want during my career.”

After covering a sensitive topic in one of his articles, Babur resigned from his work and was left jobless in Afghanistan for six months. “Without jobs it is really hard to survive,” he said. It was an online fellowship program that pulled him to the United States, where he met and shared experiences with other skilled reporters and media outlets at the Missouri School of Journalism. “You can learn more things, the media competition is really tough, and the technology and things changes really quickly,” he said. “You cannot stay with the old, classic, journalism style, you should improve yourself. And with this motivation I came to the United States.”

The American journalism scene required an adjustment, as the air with which writers approached their articles was far from Babur’s previous experience. “In Afghanistan, when you’re doing a story, you should be really careful when you choose some news idea, and you should look . . . [at] the impact of the story when it’s published and people read your story,” he said. “At Missouri, I was introduced [to lots of] journalists, and they were really happy with their job. When I start as a journalist, I had a lot of troubles.”

Since arriving in Pittsburgh, Mr. Babur’s main relationship has been at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette newspaper, but in this last week, he began working with Point Park University. He has been learning to produce multimedia content, with his most recent piece for the university’s newspaper, Point Park News, involving photo, video, and an article in the covering of World Refugee Day.

Mr. Andrew Conte, the Director of Center for Media Innovation at Point Park University, has been working with Mr. Babur.“He has a lot to share with journalists in Pittsburgh, and I think he has a lot to gain from journalists in the United States,” Mr. Conte said. “I think that [learning to use multimedia technology] will be the benefit for him being here, if he can learn how to use all those tools to do journalistic stories in that way, and if he can take it back and use it for himself in Afghanistan but also share it with the other journalists he works with.”

For any journalist in a heated conflict zone, career paths have been riddled with adversity and peril. But for those like Mr. Babur, their passion for their field remains strong. “At the beginning [there were] a lot of problems,” he said. “I didn’t find any good way of helping people. But the aim of journalism is to help people and tell the story of others, and we [are] a bridge between ordinary people and officials.”