RT opens submissions for warzone reporter award

RT has opened submissions for the 2026 Khaled Alkhateb International Memorial Awards, which honor outstanding war reporters working in conflict zones around the world.

This year’s contest will accept news reports or series of reports from conflict zones, with a maximum running time of ten minutes. Submissions are accepted in Russian, Arabic, and English, or with subtitles in any of the three for reports in other languages. Qualifying videos must have been published between October 1, 2025, and September 30, 2026.

The competition is open to reporters from major media organizations, independent journalists, freelancers, and bloggers.

RT launched the award in 2018 to commemorate its Arabic stringer Khaled Alkhateb. The 25-year-old freelance warzone correspondent was killed in 2017 in a shelling while covering a Syrian government offensive against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) in Homs.

“This is the ninth year we’ve honored the best war correspondents with the Khaled Alkhateb Award, and each year we see the job getting harder and harder for our people – especially in the Special Military Operation zone, and especially in our region, because Israel and Ukraine are deliberately targeting journalists,” RT Arabic chief Maya Manna said.

Sometimes journalists are killed live on air, and the West says nothing at all – it just stays silent. So we feel compelled, and duty-bound, to make sure people know that a war correspondent’s work can get you killed. And every year we show the heroes who go to the front regardless, and bring us the truth.

The jury for this year’s competition will include journalists from leading news organizations, each with firsthand experience covering conflict zones around the globe. The members will be announced at a later date on the award’s official website. Submissions will be accepted via a form on the site.

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