“We are in the area of darkness. We are where Marie Colvin died,” Jon Snow told an audience at the Olive Tree Media forum on 26 March at City. He was making the point that despite a year of extensive coverage on the “Arab Spring”, the media is yet to pick up on one of its latest mutations – a Sunni-Shia conflict that threatens to engulf the region.

This analysis is typical of one of Britain’s most recognisable journalists, who at the talk also described himself as an “Iranophile”, stressed the significance of otherwise neglected protests in Saudi Arabia and Israel, and advocated social media as a source of news. Here we ask him about the role citizen journalists can play in foreign reporting and how we should understand Iran.

Video by Pete Ellender. Text and interview by Julia Rampen.

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