Journalist Josh Baker has followed the story of Shamima Begum, a woman from London who fled to Syria at 15 to join ISIS in 2015. I still remember vividly watching the TV in my living room as BBC reported three teenage girls left their homes in London to join ISIS. Shamima Begum is now 23 and is being held in an ISIS detention camp in Syria. She has been circulating in the news for quite a bit because her U.K. citizenship has been revoked and she is pleading to return to London.
The investigative podcast produced by BBC is titled “I’m Not a Monster: The Shamima Begum Story”
Whether or not you are in support of Shamima, Josh’s investigative work is incredible as he interviews Shamima inside the detention camp while additionally fact-checking the entirety of her claims by retracing her exact journey from London to Syria.
I thought his most recent twitter post was interesting…
“Day 1 of not receiving some form of abusive or threatening message due to The Shamima Begum Story. I’d urge more people to listen and watch. Dialogue really is becoming a lost art. I’ll be hiding on this island.” (Feb 18)
It’s so terrible when people target journalists for their subjects. We desperately need people like Josh Baker who fearlessly go into danger to bring truth to the world.
I feel like a big aspect of this whole fake news issue is that real journalists, the ones who put hard work and research, into their work are being hated for it. I don’t want to say they are scared, but maybe hesitant to do work they would otherwise do because of haters.
The effort you mentioned this journalist devoted to this subject reminds me of the unfortunate reality that many of us (and by us I mean people) now consider ourselves properly equipped to be de facto journalists because of the apparent plethora of information present on the internet. There is so little respect currently given to experts, and it seems as if everyone with a smartphone now considers themselves equipped to report on these subjects!