How this Kurdish agency breaks news, taboos

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — In Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast, the working day starts early for journalists. The agenda is hectic with urban clashes between the security forces and Kurdish militants, military operations and round-the-clock curfews resulting in dire humanitarian fallout.

On a recent morning in a newsroom in Diyarbakir, six young women sat around the table, discussing the news agenda for the day. “At 10 a.m. a group of women will march to the district of Sur, which is still under curfew, and at 12 p.m. families unable to take the bodies of relatives killed in Sur will make a press statement,” the woman leading the meeting said before moving on to other items on the full agenda. She then proceeded to give assignments to the staff members. “Medine, you follow the families,” she said. “And you two go to the town of Kulp to see what’s going on there.”