Ruth Michaelson is a journalist based in Istanbul, covering life across the Middle East, the environment, and tech.
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‘This place instilled constant fear in us’: the man who lived next door to the brutal Homs security unit for 50 years
The Observer
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The Bank Robbers Stealing Their Own Money
Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine
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Egypt’s bad cop: The story of one man, fighting to his last breath, to reveal the darkness that lies behind this year’s UN Climate Change Conference
Tortoise
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An 'oasis' for women? Inside Saudi Arabia’s vast new female-only workspaces
The Guardian
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‘No one can bring back what we lost’: fears rise among poor in Turkish city ravaged by earthquakes
The Observer
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‘Here’s how it feels’: how a Lebanese businessman lost everything in five years of turmoil and war
The Observer
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‘If I had the power I’d destroy the whole thing’: what went wrong with the ghost town of Disney-style castles?
Guardian Saturday Magazine
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‘Waste colonialism’: world grapples with west’s unwanted plastic
The Guardian
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‘In this world, social media is everything’: how Dubai became the planet’s influencer capital
Guardian Weekend Magazine
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Surveillance, greenwashing and a hunger strike: welcome to Egypt’s Cop27
The New Statesman Magazine
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‘It’s being built on our blood’: the true cost of Saudi Arabia’s $500bn megacity
The Guardian
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‘They want revenge. They’re saying, either we die or you die’: West Bank residents fear rising tide of violence
The Guardian
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‘We Can’t Predict What Israel Will Do.’ Inside the Fear and Chaos Gripping Lebanon
TIME Magazine
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Heaven into hell: how a luxury block in Turkey became a mass grave
The Guardian
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Turkey’s drones had a bad reputation. The war in Ukraine has changed that
Coda Story
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‘Illegal’ extradition of Bahraini dissident from Serbia calls Interpol’s role into question
The Guardian
I’m a journalist who has been based in the Middle East since 2012. I spent over five years in Cairo, and have been living in Turkey since 2021. I have covered everything from life in autocratic regimes to the risk of Gulf states running out of water, but above all I am most interested in telling a compelling story that gets readers paying attention to an unusual topic.
My work is mainly published in the Guardian, where I cover Turkey and the wider Middle East, especially North Africa and the Gulf.
I’ve also written for Bloomberg Businessweek, TIME, the Columbia Journalism Review, Coda Story, Smithsonian Magazine, the New Statesman, Monocle, and many of your other favourite magazines and websites.
I’m a frequent contributor to Monocle24 and Deutsche Welle, and a former correspondent for France 24 in Cairo.
Contact
For work related to the Guardian:
ruth.michaelson@guardian.co.uk
For all other work:
ruth@ruthmichaelson.com
TR: +90 544 928 28 43
UK: +44 7950 218 594
For WhatsApp& Signal, please use my UK number.