I asked, “Do you have a number from the Union of Bakers in Sistan and Baluchestan?” He replied, “I can give you the number of someone who is a baker himself. Get it from him.”

Without further questioning, I called the baker and started talking. The more we talked, the more I realized his high level of literacy and extensive knowledge. I asked if he was a member of the Baker’s Union?

I used to be a journalist and now I am a baker.

I know another reporter who works in a prefabricated plaster workshop; he used to be a political reporter a few years ago and now he takes selfies with his plaster-covered hands and eats lunch with the workers on the newspaper. I once asked him, “Why did you change your job?” He replied, “I couldn’t write reports in the political service anymore and I thought working as a laborer is more honorable.”

I understand them well; especially when I found out that the Ukrainian plane was shot down, but at my previous workplace they stood firmly in front of me and said, “Do you want to shut down the newspaper?” Not only did they not let me write the plane report, but despite my insistence, they were not even willing to leave the end of the report open and wrote like other newspapers: “Shooting down the Ukrainian plane is impossible.”

I remember those days when I felt so bored and wanted to give up this job, but the few followers I had on my personal page wrote to me: “Who do you want to hand over the field to and leave?” and made me doubt. Those same people I had written to have been shot down by a plane and have written to me, reminding me of these messages.

Making a decision about leaving a job that you love is extremely difficult and heartbreaking. Deciding to stay in a job that has caused you despair and hopelessness multiple times is also very challenging and exhausting, but the most heartbreaking part of it all is that the oppressive forces discredit the freedom of expression of journalists. They do whatever they can to tarnish the reputation of journalists and sometimes even offer tempting financial incentives to those who are struggling to make ends meet with their minimum wage salaries, unable to afford their rent, bills, and debts. Many of these journalists have become unofficial mouthpieces of governments and get paid for producing government-approved content. Some have even become anti-journalist elements and defend their government employers in the face of other journalists’ exposure on social media, fulfilling their duty to protect their government employers.

Sometimes journalists are bought with positions and titles. In Iran, almost all the economic cake is in the hands of the government and semi-governmental organizations, and among the various government distribution positions, the names of journalists are seen; journalists who have become members of the boards of directors of large economic holdings such as petrochemicals, cement, steel, refineries, etc., or have received such large amounts from the election headquarters of government officials that they have created expensive and private businesses. Establishing cafes and restaurants in the north of the city, and owning luxury and expensive cars are among the privileges that suddenly become available to journalists.

Among these are reporters who do not give in to these incidents and remain in bankrupt Iranian media, they are forced to work two or three shifts to reach a relatively sufficient income. Parallel work and high volume causes a decline in the performance of reporters and leads to a decline in the quality of their reports; reports that are not investigative and have many mistakes, and after a while, they undermine the credibility of the media and the reporter, and reporters who are committed to investigative and high-quality reports face other problems. They are forced to constantly fight against censorship; such widespread censorship that sometimes includes red lines of criticism against Russia and China, and tightens the hands of journalists to write day by day.

Unfortunately, these censorships are not only limited to official media, and journalists are faced with various forms of online and organized harassment on their personal pages. Harassers try to discredit journalists with false information and fake news, or distort their independence by creating false relationships and producing negativity for their audience. Some online harassers try to scare journalists by labeling them as affiliated with foreign intelligence agencies and spy services, and some threaten them and their families with physical harm. Some harassers fabricate documents against journalists and try to discredit them in the Iranian rumor mill by spreading them widely through chain and organized accounts.

It is difficult to write without introduction that being a journalist in Iran is very difficult; it is a job without water and full of troubles, in which anyone who remains committed and works safely, undoubtedly has no motivation other than love for this job.

I remember well, there was a time when one of the high-ranking government officials came to criticize the newspaper and congratulate the journalist’s day. He asked the journalist, “For all the trouble you go through, how much money do you make?” When the journalist announced his salary, the person said in astonishment, “You must be crazy or in love, there is no other way someone would go through so much trouble for such little money.”

However, the number of crazy or passionate people in this job is very small, and in difficult economic times, they are falling one by one in Iran; reporters who eventually find the fate of that baker or plasterer and at least leave the heavy mental pressure of journalism in Iran or pack their bags and migrate to another country, which of course, even in the case of migration, they are not safe from the tormentors.