numbers and powers have clearly increased since the 2011 U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. After the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or ISIL in 2014, certain factions seized the public domain and are still expanding and developing new control and influence mechanisms. They operate according to their own agendas and mostly override the government’s political, security, and economic decisions. In such a divided society and fragmented power base what- ever journalists say or report, becomes a subject of particular in- terpretation of one party or another. It all depends on the power and influence of the media institution involved. Different inter- pretations, coupled with dictating domestic and regional agendas of Iraqi political parties, usually result in many hardships and ob- stacles for journalists, even risking their personal lives and secu- rity. Many in Iraq exert pressures of some sort and some of these pressures may amount to explicit or implicit threats. This is the scenario that Al Jazeera faces constantly, as every party wants the channel to adopt their views on what’s happening on the ground. This is the case not only for political and other sensitive issues, but also for nearly everything else. In this context, Al Jazeera’s Bagh- dad office Director, Waleed Ibrahim, argues that “every event has something to do with politics, even if politics is not involved. This is very problematic. Everything may be politicised. Talking about sports may be politicised. If the Iraqi national football team beats certain team, the whole situation may be interpreted by this or that party from a political angle” (1) . As parties with religious back- grounds enjoy a big role in the post-2003 Iraqi politics, talking about religion has come to be mainly political. For example, air- ing a religious sermon from a given mosque may irritate another party from a different sect. “Talking about arts is also politicised and journalists tend to avoid going into details when reporting on such topics no matter how important the story is. Avoiding many peculiarities about several topics is the only way to avoid unnec-
(1) Waleed Ibrahim, head of Al Jazeera’s Baghdad office, email interview, 10 September 2020.
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