Interview: Vassilios Nicolaos Vitsilogiannis (@vassiliosvitsilogiannis)
Sahar Zand is a young multi-award-winning reporter and documentary-maker who specialises in finding and telling unique stories that often fall between the cracks of the mainstream media. Fascinated by people, cultural change, and current affairs, Sahar’s solid journalistic instincts complement a natural flair for absorbing complex information, and presenting it in a refreshingly engaging and concise manner.
Sahar has worked across the BBC, Channel 4, and a range of other international broadcasters, and her hard-hitting journalism for Television, Radio, Digital and Text has taken her to far corners of the world. Young girls force-fed for marriage in Mauritania, murder of social media stars in Iraq, Afghanistan’s only secure psychiatric unit, Me Too in Bollywood, living with the dead in Indonesia, mothers in US jails, government’s crackdown on the press in Nicaragua, migrant ghettos in Denmark and horsewomen of Fantasia in Morocco are amongst some of Sahar’s recent projects.
Born in Iran, Sahar became a refugee at a young age, being smuggled across the world and living in various refugee camps. Finally, settling in the UK at the age of 14 with her mother and younger sister, she struggled with poverty living in council flats in Glasgow, Peterborough and London. She now chooses to pursue stories that speak to under-served audiences, uncovering stories from around the world that would otherwise remain unreported.
Sahar’s reputation as a disruptive, creative and distinguished journalist of the digital age has given her a prominence that regularly sees her giving talks about journalism, storytelling and film-making at festivals and universities around the world. Sahar is also a guest lecturer at a number of universities including the University of West London and the London School of Communication.
Website www.saharzand.com
Insta @Saharzand5
Twitter @SaharZand
Facebook Facebook.com/SaharZand
Did you face any racism?
The most recent and perhaps obvious case was whilst I was filming a documentary for the BBC called ‘Denmark’s Migrant Ghettos’. I had travelled to Copenhagen to witness the country’s election, and explore how immigration was shaping the campaign debate. For this documentary, I questioned the country’s politicians and migrants about some controversial government policies and the rise of Alt-right.
One of the most controversial people I met there was Rasmus Paludan, a far-right politician who says all Muslims should be deported back to their “shithole countries”. I met him as he and his followers were burning several copies of the Quran next to the Copenhagen’s Muslim community, who were gathered to break their fast during Ramadan.
Before I started to interview him, he pointed to my dark hair and name, asking me where I’m from. I said that I was a British citizen but born in Iran. From then on, every difficult question I asked him, he attacked me and my background, saying that I should be relocated to my “shithole country” of Iran because as a “Muslim” – which I told him I was not – I clearly don’t understand the basics of democracy and freedom of speech. The saying that “give an idiot a rope and he’ll hang himself,” was certainly true here, as my only intention was to show his true colours in my documentary.
The challenges that I was brought up with, taught me from an early age not to concern myself too much with the things that I have little or no control over. Instead, I’ve been conditioned to just do my best with what I have, and can somewhat control.
My mother has always told me: “If you can’t get in through the front door, try the back door. If that fails, try the window. If that also fails, try the chimney.” This is exactly what I’ve done all my life, and if some of the challenges, obstacles and even failures that I faced along the way were a result of racism, I didn’t waste time and energy fretting over them. Instead, I remained persistent in pursuit of my goals, and tried other avenues or approaches when things didn’t work out.
As a result, my success can only be a middle finger to all those who tried to be an obstacle for whatever reason, including racism.
Having said this, it’s important for me to also point out, I am one of the lucky ones never to have had any drastic experiences, and as we see on the news all too often, unfortunately, racism is still very real and can have devastating consequences; for its victims, and society at large.
Coming to Europe, and settling down in UK, how difficult was it to adjust to another reality?
Escaping my parents’ political persecution, I fled Iran a few months after my 12th birthday, along with my mother and 4-year-old sister. I remember looking down from the plane window, watching as my city, my birth place, got smaller and smaller until it disappeared forever beneath the clouds.
The plane landed in Denmark; the destination chosen by the smuggler who had issued our fake visas. We were put in a car, and as I looked out at the unfamiliar landscape, I was fixated by the sky; it comforted me that at least it was the same colour as it had always been. We were dropped off at an enclosure with tall brick walls covered with barbed wire. I looked at the other residents thinking they were zombies, staring at us with dead eyes. “Surely this is a prison” I recall thinking, but I was wrong. This was our first home outside of Iran.
Big canteens, confusion, food sanctions, fear, medical checks, clothes donations, my mum, crying. At some point I was put on a bus, leaving the temporary refugee camp for a permanent one.
I was scared of every single person there: the Iraqi guy with the huge scar from his forehead to his chin; the Syrian with one eye; the Somalian woman whose face was covered under a burka; the bruised Eastern European lady who said she’d run away from her abusive husband; the young Palestinian who claimed to be a former terrorist; the big fat Turkish man with a huge moustache who never seemed to go anywhere without his shisha. All of them, every single one, terrified me.
Whenever the camp’s bus would take us on our fortnightly shopping trip to the nearest supermarket about a two-hour drive away, the locals would look at us the way I had looked at the residents on my first day at the camp; we scared them. I felt myself a burden, unwanted. And I was beginning to accept it, this new identity. My identity as a refugee.
Then Jeff showed up. Jeff was an old Danish man who started coming in to visit us with a camera. He didn’t understand me and I didn’t I understand him – but he saw us. He wanted to make a film featuring us the refugee kids, and hearing this was a turning point for me. A thought lodged itself in my mind: I didn’t have to be invisible. I’d go to bed dreaming about being on TV one day, and showing the world what I’ve been through. A dream of speaking, and being heard.
Initially it was logistics, boredom, and limited space which forced the other refugees and me to sit down and actually listen to one another. Our neighbours were from diverse backgrounds, ages, races, colours, and beliefs, and when you live in a close-knit community, your survival depends on communication. With all of us desperate to find a way to communicate, we developed a new language we called “Campie” – a mixture of Arabic, Farsi, Danish, English, and drawings.
When I started listening to the other asylum seeker residents, I began to find myself mesmerised by their journeys and stories. We may have been put away by the authorities, homeless, a burden, unwanted and invisible to the society in which we lived, but we saw and heard each other. Telling our stories made us feel like we mattered. I made detailed notes in my diary during these years in the refugee camps, so that one day I could tell the world about it. Those who had once scared me became my family; our bond made the hardship of our lives easier to bear.
When I found out that the man with the huge scar on his face had been murdered, I cried harder than I had when I learnt my granddad in Tehran had passed away.
But this new family, this new world, wasn’t to last. Every morning with my mum I’d go to the camp’s office to look for our names on the list announcing those whose asylum application had been either accepted or rejected. One morning, our time was up. We hadn’t been granted permission to stay and had to pack our bags.
We had to start all over again. From scratch. We were exhausted.
The next few months were hard. Hiding from border police, being smuggled from border to border, sleeping rough on the pavements of Europe, shaking from the cold, trying not to think about food because we hadn’t eaten for so long. We had learnt by this point to live life one day at a time, and our experience at the refugee camp had taught us to make the most of the little we did have.
After a few months like this, I was once again on a plane, bound for the UK. There, we were eventually granted citizenship. We were in a home that was ours and a country we felt we belonged in.
This wasn’t the end of my story of course. My mother, sister and I lived on the poverty line around different cities in the UK, trying to learn English, with the emotional trauma of what we’d been through weighing heavy on us all. But the determination and self-reliance that had grown in me from my childhood experiences have built me into the journalist I am now.
I recently made Me, The Refugee for the BBC World Service, telling my own story for the first time. It was the most difficult thing I’ve ever made, even after all these years, even after reporting from some of the world’s most hostile environments like Afghanistan, Iraq, Mauritania, Nicaragua and Syria.
That I now travel the world trying my best to give a voice to the voiceless by telling their stories is all due to the power I found as a child when one man came to my refugee camp and listened to me, and I in turn learnt to listen to others. I want the world to listen to the voices of people with different stories to us, and being given a platform like the BBC and Channel 4 to tell them is so important to creating a compassionate world.
Studying Architecture at the University of Kent is the opposite direction of journalism. What was that bug that was eating you up and turned you towards to journalism?
At 18 years old, I wasn’t bothered by much but being a normal teenager: parties, having fun, and of course, boys. I didn’t even know what Architecture was, until a bored and unenthusiastic career-advisor at my college suggested, based on the questionnaire I had filled out and my A-levels qualifications, that I should study Architecture at university. So, I went ahead with her advice and enrolled to study a topic that had never really interested me.
Whilst still a student and during the summer break, I was “discovered” by the London-based Iranian Channel Manoto TV as a TV presenter. When I was on camera, I felt alive; I loved having a voice, a platform. At 20 years old, this was the beginning of my career in journalism.
All this, however, came to a grinding halt when I lost my job at the channel a few months later, as I struggled to juggle my studies and the demands of the job. I was devastated, but I wasn’t going to give up on my newly-found passion. Although I stayed at university and finished my degree in Interior Architecture and Design, I taught myself how to film, edit, produce, write and all the other skills needed to get me working in the media.
After university, I had to really start at the bottom of the ladder. I took whatever journalism job I could take; paid, or free. From runner, to researcher and guest producer, I did it all, for any channels or broadcaster that would take me. Slowly, and after a lot of persistence and hard work, I started writing articles for the BBC. This was followed by producing and reporting news packages, – often handling everything from idea generation to filming, producing and editing – and then finally to making both radio and TV documentaries.
How I got into journalism may seem like a coincidence, but looking back at my life, it seems like everything that ever happened to and around me was to prepare me for this career.
What method do you use to analyse and interpret news and information received from various sources in order to be able to broadcast the information, or even go on the spot.
In the age of technology, we have a lot of information at our disposal, and people in the business of news want to spread it fast. In the race of not falling behind, accuracy can sometimes get jeopardised. Misinformation spread by journalists will be taken as facts, which can snowball and have serious consequences.
That’s why it’s very important to really fact check, and do thorough background research before publishing and broadcasting anything. This is up to the journalists and their teams.
Different organisations have different criteria for fact checking. For example, the BBC expects any facts they broadcast or publish to have been verified by at least three reliable sources. On occasions when this is not possible, and we’re stating a fact or statistic, we have to be transparent and clearly mention who we’re quoting and where we got any piece of information from.
Fake news is another thing to watch out for. The internet is awash with made-up news stories. It’s not a new problem, but the highly charged US election campaign forced people to pay attention. A while back I fronted a documentary for the BBC’s World Hacks called ‘The War On Fake News’ where I explored how different organisations are fighting back against what they see as a threat to democracy: the fake news epidemic. At the end, the conclusion was that it all essentially comes down to the education of the consumers, and for the public to be aware of the information they’re presented with.
What is the key to success when communicating with the public?
Honesty.
I became a journalist with the intention of using my platform to give a voice to those who don’t have one, and all I can do is to stay true to that goal. I do this by making content with my viewers in mind, respecting their time, intellect and interest. I really put myself in their shoes and try to make something that I would watch myself. I also take my audiences’ feedback seriously and often read their comments and suggestions on social media.
How difficult is it for a woman to be in the media and especially covering unpleasant stories in dreadful conditions?
The experience of covering unpleasant and dreadful stories is the same for both men and women. What sets women apart is how we are treated by our colleagues and seniors in the office, the people on the shoots, and even the type of comments people leave on social media.
As a woman, I’ve always felt like I’ve had to work twice as hard as my male colleagues to prove myself in the office. On social media, I’m often subjected to the type of misogynistic trolling that my male colleagues never experience, like certain comments on my look, outfit, hair, body etc, and not my work or what I’m saying. And on the ground when on a shoot, there have been times when the men have ignored me and spoken to my male assistant, believing them to be someone in charge of me.
Despite how women are sometimes looked upon in our industry, I feel that we are more than capable to do what men do, and even more. For example, being a woman has worked in my advantage many times in my line of work. In a recent documentary I made in Baghdad and Basra for the Unreported World programme on Channel 4, called ‘Iraq’s Social Media Marty’s’ where I investigated the murder of social media stars there, wearing a hijab helped me to blend it with the crowd, and therefore stay hidden from the spying eye of the violent militias. Furthermore, women and children often find it a lot easier and more comfortable to open up to another woman, especially when covering more sensitive topics like sexual assault.
Is there a possibility a journalist to decide rapidly when his/her ethics are tested and cut to the chase?
I would never, ever abandon my basic principles, just to get a story done. As journalists, we have a lot of power, and with power comes great responsibility. This includes reporting on the truth no matter what, staying balanced and representing all sides of the argument, and of course, duty of care towards the people who take part in the documentaries. I would never, ever do anything that would put them in danger, or to jeopardise their position in any way.
There have been occasions where I have had to abandon a story, because going any further with it would not meet my principles, even though I worked extremely hard for it and letting it go ended up costing me dearly.
For example, I recently went on a high-risk mission to Mauritania, where I went undercover to make a documentary about the small community of Christian converts, in a country where leaving Islam is punishable by death, after the government removed the three-day repenting period in case anyone gets caught. Once I got there, I realised that I cannot cover the story without running the risk of this community getting found out, which would put the lives of every single one of my characters in danger. So I decided not to broadcast the story.
Have you ever thought of a brief hiatus in your career just to lay back, relax and reshape conditions differently?
Yes. Always. After every project, it’s important to take a pause, reflect, get feedback, learn from mistakes, identify strengths, and then take the next step accordingly. Especially for me, I have a lot of freedom regarding who I work for and on what stories, so it’s important to maintain focus on the direction in which I want to head.
Furthermore, in my line of work, personal well-being and especially mental health can be affected severely, whilst at the same time being woefully neglected. I found this out after I returned from one of my trips to Afghanistan, where I was making a documentary called ‘Madness of War’. For the shoot, I spent weeks in the country’s only secure psychiatric unit where the most dangerous mental health patients were kept in dire conditions, some of them chained, and all highly sedated. It was during this trip where I was also in the same building where a suicide attack killed 12 people. It was only a few months after my return, when my editors at the BBC made me go see a therapist, that I was diagnosed by PTSD and depression. Only when I started my therapy did I really understand the importance of taking care of my mental health, and keeping it in check.
What do you think of social media?
The boom in technology has changed the way we consume and produce content. Over 4.33 billion people were active internet users as of July 2019; ( https://www.statista.com/statistics/617136/digital-population-worldwide/ ) that’s over half the global population.
Nearly three quarters of the world receive their breaking news from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram, instead of traditional media. ( https://www.aokmarketing.com/ )
This is an extraordinary opportunity for journalism and news, and has led to a change of language in our content; not just in terms of vocabulary, but also in how we find and tell stories.
Content producers like myself are now increasingly trying to tap into the power of smartphones and social media. We’re now able to reach places and connect with people that may have been inaccessible in the past, allowing us to get a different perspective and a closer view on what’s happening,
This network is much harder to control and censor. In oppressive nations like my native Iran, or in Nicaragua where I made a film about the government’s siege on the press, it didn’t matter that those with vested interests were trying to hide or manipulate the truth by controlling the media. Ordinary citizens were able to capture incidents and events on their smartphones, and share them amongst themselves and the rest of the world via social media. Without access to this rich pool of information and user-generated content – a lot of which was used in the film as archive – finding the story, or making of the film, may not have been possible.
Furthermore, the power-balance between content-producers and consumers seems to have shifted. With direct access to one another – enabled by social media – content-producers now have an unfiltered insight into consumer’s demands, sentiments and expectations, which will in turn shape our content.
The audiences have changed too.As soon as any content is available online, it’s accessible by far more people than ever before, and they can be anywhere in the world. This diverse audience is also more informed, alert and savvy, with an even greater demand for further information and analysis.
With so much available at the consumers’ fingertips, the lifespan of a news story is much shorter than it used to be. A story can easily drown and get lost in the vast ocean of information constantly updating. It’s therefore arguably harder, yet more important than ever, for us content producers to hunt for exclusive stories, and present them in a way that stands out. It’s not merely enough for them to be accurate, relevant and timely, but they must also have a high impact, whilst being interesting and appealing to a wide range of audiences.
The adage “the only constant is change” definitely applies to journalism.
Your advice to a new reporter.
I have never, not for single moment, thought that I could single-handedly fix things that have been broken for such a long time. But if nobody knows about what’s going on, then nothing can change. That’s why our job as journalists is sacred. We have the platform to make the voice of others heard, to spread the truth, and therefore bring about real change. It’s therefore important to keep our reporting and content about the people and the subject we’re covering, and not making it about ourselves. We are merely a tool for the story to get told, not the story itself. If you’re after fame, fortune and validation, you’re entering the wrong industry.
Your advice to empower women in countries where rights are not applied to.
On my travels around the world, and through the stories I have covered, whether in hostile and poorer places, or even the developed world, I often see that when people are having a tough time, the women are always up against it that bit more than the men. That’s why I often, but not exclusively, tend to focus on the experiences of women in my documentaries.
I have been inspired, time and time again, by women who have been knocked down so hard that it’s difficult to believe they’ve gotten back up again; women who haven’t given up, and continue fighting despite all challenges. For example, the teenage girls I met in Afghanistan who were fighting the Taliban with music only all-female orchestra Or the Bollywood actresses going behind the camera in an attempt to get back control in the misogynistic film industry after the Me Too Movement. Even the women in Iran taking off their scarves in public as a part of the stealthy freedom movement.
These women are already strong, powerful and brave, with an extraordinary ability to endure injustice and pressure. One thing all these women have in common is that when they wanted change, they started with themselves, and that small step led to much bigger change. Looking at history, the biggest changes have always started with a single step, and I’ve been privileged to witness people taking these steps thanks to the documentaries I’ve made.
Your motto in life
I have hundreds and which one I live by depends on the day and circumstance; today for example, and after answering your questions, it’s ‘Be the change you want to see in the world.’
Interview: Vassilios Nicolaos Vitsilogiannis (@vassiliosvitsilogiannis)
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