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Yaara Bou Melhem is a broadcast journalist, who has worked in the remotest corners of Australia and around the world.
In 2009 and 2011, she was named Young Australian Television Journalist of the Year by the Walkley Foundation for her Dateline reports.
Yaara's 2009 win was for her first short documentary, Jordan - Jailing the Innocent, which told the story of women imprisoned under the guise of keeping them safe. She was also commended in the Social Justice category of the Walkley Awards for the story.
And in 2011, Freedom's Call looked at the Syrian people's democracy movement and the government’s hardline stance against discontent. That story also won the overall Young Journalist of the Year Award.
Yaara was also nominated for the award in 2010 for her stories on asbestos contamination in an Aboriginal community for SBS’s Living Black.
She’s also been a five-time finalist in the UN Media Peace Awards for her TV reporting from the Middle East, winning in 2011 with her reports Freedom's Call and Bahrain's Dark Secret. Those reports also won a Walkley Award for Yaara in 2011.
After working across News and Current Affairs at SBS in TV, Radio and Online, Yaara spent a year in Beirut, and now reports for Australian and international networks, including SBS and Dateline.
Yaara holds a double degree in Journalism and Law.
