In Netflix’s plan to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN is left out—to the reported relief of its staffers. Read @aidaalami.bsky.social. www.cjr.org/the_media_to...

In 2025, press freedom came under direct attack. We must not respond to this existential crisis with silence and apathy. Read @aidaalami.bsky.social. www.cjr.org/the_media_to...

www.cjr.org/the_media_to... “I fear that press freedom is slowly and quietly eroding while institutional silence and apathy do nothing to protect it. Freedom is never lost at once.” @aidaalami.bsky.social

Powerful and poignant piece by @aidaalami.bsky.social in Columbia Journalism Review on how Western legacy media covers Gaza | www.cjr.org/the_media_to...

Starting January 1 wherever you listen to radio. 🤍 #IWMF

In her latest piece for The @newyorker.com, @aidaalami.bsky.social, James Madison Visiting Professor on First Amendment Issues, tells the story of Leqaa Kordia, who demonstrated outside Columbia’s campus gates and remains the last participant still detained by ICE: www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

Had Hamdi’s arrest happened anywhere else in the world, it'd "spark a collective outcry," @aidaalami.bsky.social writes in @columjournreview.bsky.social. “But in this case, the person targeted is pro-Palestine. The muted reaction is a troubling public response to a troubling act of state power.”

The ICE detention of Sami Hamdi closely follows the deportation of Mario Guevara. Read @aidaalami.bsky.social. www.cjr.org/the_media_to...

Proximity to power is not the only way—or even the best way—to report on government, by @aidaalami.bsky.social. www.cjr.org/the_media_to...

Column: Detainees at ICE facilities may be more vulnerable to extreme heat exposure than people housed in federal, state and county prisons, according to a Washington Post analysis.

Do you know the name, Leqaa Kordia? She’s the last Columbia protester in ICE detention. Read her story. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

Leqaa Kordia faces deportation for protesting the war in Gaza, in which she lost more than 175 of her relatives. She is the last Columbia protestor still in ICE detention. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman who has lived in the U.S. since 2016, has been detained in Texas for the past eight months. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

Leqaa Kordia—not a Columbia student but “a simple Palestinian girl,” as she describes herself—is the last remaining campus protester still in detention from the Trump Administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrators in the U.S. Read her story: https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/mGwzBs

Leqaa Kordia—not a Columbia student but “a simple Palestinian girl,” as she describes herself—is the last remaining campus protester still in detention from the Trump Administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrators in the U.S.

journalist @aidaalami.bsky.social interviewed on the GenZ protests in Morocco and their "very basic and reasonable demands" and regime efforts to "co-opt the movement." www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx3A...

What Could We Be Doing in Gaza? Urgent ideas to defend press freedom in the world's deadliest place for journalists.! 🦋 www.cjr.org/feature/urge...

Fascinating and deeply reported piece from Aida Alami in @nybooks.com on what makes a uniquely Muslim American imam, and how they are helping themselves and their community navigate the demands of a secularizing, pluralistic, and Islamophobic country.

“Imams in the US,” writes @aidaalami.bsky.social, “[need] to guide their congregants through civic life in a country whose dominant culture is secularizing, pluralistic, and systematically Islamophobic.”

"The task of imams in the US is markedly different: to guide their congregants through civic life in a country whose dominant culture is secularizing, pluralistic, and systematically Islamophobic." Excellent piece by @aidaalami.bsky.social @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social www.nybooks.com/online/2025/...

From "The Radical Courage of Noor Abdalla" by @aidaalami.bsky.social for the @newyorker.com. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

An enormous tree has fallen and I'm hoping to see a definitive appreciation. I was privileged to know Ngugi late in his career. He and I did a book discussion together at UC Irvine in 2011, we've shared an agent, and stayed in touch. A big loss. lithub.com/ngugi-wa-thi...

“To the students here today, you spoke when silence was the easier choice,” Noor Abdalla said. “You stood firmer when these institutions failed you. True justice and education must include the freedom to dissent, the right to speak out for human rights, and the courage ...”

My latest:

Noor Abdalla was eight months pregnant when her husband, Mahmoud Khalil, was arrested, in March. She hasn’t seen him since, and now has a one-month-old son. nyer.cm/b7u1tIk

Wonderfully written by @aidaalami.bsky.social , an empathetic piece on an enraging situation

"In terms of journalism, I am equally as horrified institutionally as I am inspired individually" Very poignant interview by @aidaalami.bsky.social with Omar El Akkad www.cjr.org/the_media_to...

📝 The stories are in! M.S. theses are officially submitted today. From idea to investigation, fearless research to final drafts — CJS students have poured everything into their master’s project. Congrats to the 2025 M.S. cohort on this major milestone! #ReportingBeginsHere

A statement from Columbia Journalism School faculty defending press freedom: journalism.columbia.edu/news/cjs-fac...

“One does not have to agree with the political opinions of any particular individual to understand that these threats cut to the core of what it means to live in a pluralistic democracy.” Statement by @columbiajournalism.bsky.social journalism.columbia.edu/news/cjs-fac...

“This ‘Great Replacement’ theory—the idea that immigrants would take over and ‘invade’ the United States—actually originates from European supremacist intellectual circles,” @rokhayadiallo.bsky.social in @aidaalami.bsky.social www.cjr.org/analysis/con... @columjournreview.bsky.social #islamophobia

On reporting in Syria and getting it right, this very insightful piece from Moroccan journalist @aidaalami.bsky.social "Foreign reporters would be well served by following the work of Syrian journalists, who know the place best" www.cjr.org/analysis/syr...

“Going forward, foreign reporters would be well served by following the work of Syrian journalists, who know the place best” — excellent analysis by @aidaalami.bsky.social of Syria coverage www.cjr.org/analysis/syr...

Lo que falta en la cobertura sobre Siria. La ayuda humanitaria es solo una parte de la compleja realidad tras la caída de Bashar Al Asad. Recomendable de @aidaalami.bsky.social www.cjr.org/analysis/syr...

Yep! (From the first volume of the student publication, the CJSTribune.) @aidaalami.bsky.social

6. Our Women on the Ground by Zahra Hankir, @christianeamanpour.bsky.social, @aidaalami.bsky.social, and more Is there any journalist braver than the female reporter in an Arab world? Great that it gets so many perspectives too. (This is 19 essays.) www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/575303...

The Rapid Support Forces, an independent military group with a long history of abuse in Sudan, has reached El Fasher, the only major city in the Darfur region still outside its control. Civilians are in grave danger. www.hrw.org/news/2023/11...

copyediting tip of the day If you use the word "evocative" as a freestanding adjective, at least one person on earth* is going to think and perhaps say aloud "Of what?" *👋🏻

Al Shifa hospital, Gaza: 'The main intensive care unit has been hit and sounds of shooting and bombardments echo "every second". No-one can get leave the hospital, and no-one can come in. There is now no water, food or electricity in the hospital'. www.bbc.com/news/live/wo...

A child killed on average every 10 minutes in Gaza, says WHO chief