Rana Sabbagh

Rana Sabbagh has spent over four decades building a vibrant investigative reporting culture in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) - one of the most dangerous regions of the world for journalists to expose official wrongdoing, corruption and miscarriage of justice. In 2024, she was awarded the ICFJ Knight Media Trailblazer Award, recognizing her pioneering vision and role in spreading the culture of investigative journalism and the highest ethical and professional standards for reporters and editors in the region. As the co-founder of the Amman-based Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) and its first executive director (2006-end 2019), she has trained a generations of investigative editors and reporters, overseen the production of over 600 hard-hitting stories on issues from corruption to miscarriage and justice and fought for freedom of expression in the region at great risks to herself. Between January 2020 and January 2025, she served as senior editor for the MENA at the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), working with top-notch investigative reporters whom she trained and coached at ARIJ to expose high-level crime and corruption in the region and beyond. She co-founded both Sabbagh Consultancy in October 2024 and Public Inquiry, a mediaplatform dedicated to accountability journalism, and edits its Arabic version alil.ilem (FYI in Arabic). As the first female chief editor of a daily newspaper in the Levant, The Jordan Times, Rana led a pro-reform editorial stance from 1999 to 2002. She has also held senior roles with Reuters International News Agency and the the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN). She continues to write in-depth reports and OP-eds that appear in Byline Times, the British liberal alternative media website and and the pan-Arab daraj.com media.