Historically, Arab journalism practice and training has taken on a Western model of operation as it is regarded as an ideal model of journalism practice in the region. There is a long history of this evident from the early days of Arab journalism: In the 1930s and 1940s in Egypt, for example, when the Amin Brothers attempted to liberalise the press by revolutionising reporting methods and develop a practice of investigative journalism, they did so through a Western lens where they advocated Western-style democracy, Western liberalism, and free enterprise. Yet within a tightly monitored Arab media environment, and given the vastly different political, social and cultural contexts in which Arab journalism operated in, such concepts were not easy to apply. In turn, Arab journalism was forced to diverge from the Western model but it did so, and continues to do so, in an ad hoc fashion.
Today, in a digital journalism environment, there is still no efficient culturally-appropriate, model for Arab journalists to work within. Through an observation analysis of training sessions and interviews with Arab investigative reporters in 2013 and 2019, this paper will address this deficiency in light of developments in digital journalism through both the training and practice of investigative journalism. Arab media studies have yet to adequately interrogate trends in journalistic training, newsroom practices, and the emerging culture of Arab investigative reporting, and in turn this paper will discuss different existing models of operation to address this.