Euro News Agency: Independent Journalism from London to the World

Euro News Agency · Independent editorial project established in 2008

Independent journalism is not a business model. It is a commitment — to the story, to the source and to the reader who has no particular reason to trust you except that you keep showing up, checking the facts and doing the work.

From an independent project to London

Euro News Agency began in 2008 as my independent freelance editorial project, not as a London company. The journalism came first; the UK corporate structure came later. The agency is independent and has no connection with the Euronews television channel.

London later became a natural professional base because of its international media environment and its connections with Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the wider English-speaking world. For a multilingual project working across Arabic, French, Italian and English, that international setting matters.

2008 was also a difficult moment for international journalism. The financial crisis was reshaping news organisations, reducing foreign bureaux and putting pressure on long-form field reporting. For an independent journalist, I saw that change not only as a constraint but also as a space where direct reporting, documentary work and trusted sources still had real value.

The editorial model

Euro News Agency operates on a principle I would describe as editorial primacy. The story decides the format — not the platform, not the algorithm and not the commercial partner. We work across documentary, field video, written analysis and photography, choosing the format according to what the story actually requires.

Contemporary digital publishing is increasingly shaped by platform and distribution requirements. Our approach begins with the reporting itself. Sometimes that produces work that does not fit neatly into one platform, but editorially that can be a strength rather than a weakness.

A professional path built in stages

In 1994, after graduating in Political Science from the University of Baghdad, I began an internship in Doha through a programme linked to Al Jazeera and supported in Qatar for young talent. Those were the years of learning the craft. My professional career as a journalist began in 1998.

From 2002 I started working on travel journalism, tourism reporting and destination storytelling alongside news and documentary work. Over the years my assignments have taken me to 107 countries across six continents.

At different stages I supplied video footage, field material and reporting to international media including Al Jazeera, the Daily Mail, the BBC, Reuters and AFP — always as a freelance contributor, never as staff. A selection of that work is listed on the press page.

That experience later fed directly into Euro News Agency’s work in travel journalism, destination documentary and cultural reporting — fields where patience, language, trust and presence remain just as important as they are in hard-news reporting.

What independent journalism requires

The question I am asked most often by people considering independent journalism is how to sustain it. The answer is that it takes time, discipline and a long horizon. Independence does not remove accountability: it makes responsibility to evidence, sources, readers and corrections even more important.

For me, editorial independence means not shaping a story to satisfy a political owner, advertiser or commercial partner. The work still has to withstand scrutiny. After decades of journalism, documentary production and field work, that remains the standard I try to apply.

— Mohamed Bourbiza · Founder & Director, Euro News Agency · euronewsagency.uk