About Us

Meshkal’s main source of funding is readers like you. Please consider supporting us at www.patreon.com/meshkal. Your financial support can help us continue producing professional, independent, ad-free reporting.

The word Meshkal is Arabic for “kaleidoscope,” an instrument that—when you look through one end of it and point the other end towards a light source—presents a rich constellation of colored patterns. Rotate a kaleidoscope slightly, and the patterns and colors will change.

Like a kaleidoscope, Meshkal brings different perspectives and shows how a single phenomenon can appear layered and complex when seen from slightly different angles. Our journalists report news events comprehensively, including in a single article different—and often opposing—perspectives. We don’t publish opinion editorials (op-eds)—narrow apertures that direct readers on what and how to perceive. Instead we listen to, question, watch, record, and think about the voices of multiple people and then present them or represent them as truly as possible. The paths of some farmers and peasants, officials and stateswomen, teachers, artists, workers, siblings and parents, diplomats, scholars, and dreamers may never cross except in the pages of Meshkal, where we sketch how their lives and actions might be intertwined in relationships seen and unseen.

Since our launch in April 2019, Meshkal has aimed for high standards of professionalism, including in each article clear and understandable datelines and bylines, multiple sources of information, and the relevant historical, social, political, and cultural context for new developments. We do so because few others do, and because we think it is important that the public has access to true, reliable information.

The vast majority of our reporting has been the product of volunteer work – reporters, translators, interns, photojournalists, web developers, artists, and managers who believe in the project and its goals. Since March 2020, some of Meshkal’s work, including this relaunched website, has received funding support from non-profit foundations listed below, and Meshkal may seek to raise more funds in the future to sustain and expand its coverage. In principle we don’t see journalism as an industry, news as a commodity, or readers as consumers. We see journalism as a calling, news as an educational resource, and readers as our community and as ourselves.

– Fadil Aliriza, Editor-in-Chief and Founder of Meshkal

List of Contributors:

Meshkal contributors have included reporters, interns, web developers, translators, photographers, managers, and people who have otherwise given freely their ideas, advice, and time. Many of them have done so out of a faith in the project and what it hopes to accomplish. Anyone who has contributed their time or work to Meshkal includes, in alphabetical order:

Fadil Aliriza

Lina Azaiez

Morgan Beard

Chahd Lina Belhadj

Sarra Briki

Mohamed Kadhem Ben Chaabene

Elyes Chafter

Ouiem Chettaoui

Wael Chettaoui

Achref Chibani

Aïda Delpuech

William Edwards

Layli Foroudi

George Gale

Intissar Gassara

Matt Gordner

Ahmed Gouider

Ahmed Abu Hamed

Saerom Han

Khadija Jani

Eman Jaradat

Jack Jeffery

Malek Lakhal

Ghaya Ben Mbarek

Bilel El Mechri

Frederike Meyer

Eya Mkaddem

Maisie Odone

Mohamed Salah Ouerghi

Jakob Plaschke

Hafawa Rebhi

Dominic Ronzo

Rania Said

Ghailen Sannen

Yosr Tammar

Ignacio Villalón

Nabil Yahyaoui

Ahmed Zarrouki

Mohamed Cherif Zorai

Hanen Zrig

Funding:

From March-October 2020, and from August 2021-February 2022, financial support for this website and for some of Meshkal’s articles was provided by the Heinrich Boll Stiftung’s Tunisia office. From September-December 2020, March-April 2021, and June-December 2021, financial support for our English-language articles has been provided by International Media Support through a partnership with Nawaat. In August 2022, Internews Earth Journalism Network provided support for one article. In April 2021, Meshkal launched a call for monthly contributions from its readers using www.patreon.com/meshkal and has since benefited from the support of readers like you. We would like to give a special thanks to our “Reporter” level patrons Rania Said, Patricia Taft, Issrar Chamekh, Maggie Mitchell Salem, Mohamed-Salah Annabi, Luke Sebastian Scalone, Kevin McGinnis, Belkiss Anane, and Laryssa Chomiak.