London · Middle East · Est. 2009

Owen
Holdaway Journalist
& AI Advisor

Frontline Newsgathering  ·  AI Data Curation  ·  Editorial Strategy
Iraq
Syria
Ukraine
Lebanon
North Africa
Turkey
Hello —

I am a freelance journalist with over 15 years’ worth of on the ground newsgathering experience in conflict & humanitarian zones — and a growing practice at the intersection of journalism and artificial intelligence.

15+
Years in
the field
Field Record

Major Assignments

Iraq
Liberation of Mosul
Embedded with Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service units inside Mosul for nine months, from October 2016 to June 2017, during the campaign to liberate the city from the so-called Islamic State. Reported on the recapture of eastern Mosul and operations around the Qayyarah oil fields before relocating to Al-Hamdaniya to cover the retaking of Mosul Airport, the clearance of the western suburbs, and the final three-month close-quarters battle for the Old City
Syria
Collapse of ISIS
Covered multiple operations across northern and eastern Syria during the campaign against ISIS, including reporting from inside Raqqa during the battle to retake the organisation’s self-declared caliphate capital. Additional coverage included operations around Tal Abyad and Manbij before relocating to Qamishli, where interviews were conducted with captured ISIS members, including foreign fighters from Europe. Later embedded with Syrian Democratic Forces units near the Omar oil fields in Deir ez-Zor during the final dismantling of ISIS territorial control in Syria.
Syria
Fall of Assad Regime
Reported from Damascus following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government in December 2025, including being among the earliest journalists to enter the notorious Saydnaya Prison complex, where some of the regime’s most severe human rights abuses took place.
Iraq
Yazidi Genocide
Documented the genocidal campaign waged against the Yazidi people by ISIS, including survivor and escapee testimonies from northern Iraq, as well as coverage of the recapture of Mount Sinjar in 2015 — the ancient spiritual heartland of the Yazidi community.
Turkey & Syria
Turkish-Syrian Earthquake
Reporting from the devastation wrought by the February 2023 earthquake, which decimated vast stretches of southern Turkey and northwest Syria, one of the deadliest natural disasters in the region’s modern history.
Lebanon
Beirut Port Explosion
On-the-ground coverage of one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history, its immediate human toll, and the political fallout that followed the events of August 4th 2020.
North Africa
Refugee Crisis
Reporting on the African refugee crisis tracing migration routes from Sudan, Libya, Egypt and Tunisia to Europe, documenting detention conditions and the geopolitical forces driving displacement across the Mediterranean.
Ukraine
Russian Invasion
Covered the post-2022 full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, including frontline reporting from Kyiv during the siege in March 2022, followed by continued war coverage from Kharkiv in north-eastern Ukraine and Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region.
Ukraine
Bucha Massacre
Recorded civilian testimonies from Bucha immediately after the town was retaken by Ukrainian forces, including eyewitness accounts from relatives of those killed during the occupation, alongside further dispatches from military units operating around the recaptured Hostomel airbase.
Iraq
20-Year Anniversary
Returned to Iraq to mark two decades since the fall of the Ba’athist regime, producing a long-form examination of what had changed — and what had not — while also reporting on the reconstruction of Mosul’s historic al-Nuri Mosque, destroyed by ISIS during the 2017 conflict.
Career

Two decades at the edge of the story.

During 15 years in the field I have covered various humanitarian issues and conflicts across the Middle East and Europe — work that demands precision under pressure, the ability to build trust rapidly in hostile environments, and an uncompromising commitment to what is actually true.

I have worked with a broad range of national and international news organisations, including the Daily Mail, DW, CGTN, the BBC, The Sun, France 24, and CBS, contributing breaking news coverage, long-form investigative pieces, and in-depth feature reporting across broadcast, digital, and print platforms.

Beyond my own reporting I have extensive contacts across Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Ukraine, and other complex and hostile environments. I have used these networks to provide fixing, logistical support, and advisory guidance to other correspondents and international production teams.

New Chapter — Factual Inquirer

Where AI meets editorial intergrity.

My most recent work extends into the world of AI — curating datasets for large language model training and advising organisations on editorial standards for AI-generated content. The discipline that makes a journalist useful in a conflict zone — source verification, bias detection, editorial chain-of-custody — is precisely what the AI industry is failing to apply to its most critical input: training data.

Through Factual Inquirer, I offer advisory and consulting services to AI companies, media organisations, and enterprises navigating the intersection of editorial integrity and machine-generated content. I remain equally available for on-assignment newsgathering.

LLM Training Data
Editorial AI Policy
Bias Auditing
Media & AI Integration
Verification Workflows
Fact-Check Systems
News Organisations
BBC
France 24
CBS
Daily Mail
The Sun
DW
CGTN
Availability
Open to new assignments
and consulting briefs
FieldOn-assignment newsgathering
AdvisoryAI consulting & editorial
Get in Touch
Signal
Available on request
Owen Holdaway · Factual Inquirer