Based on interviews with Syrian media practitioners, this article uses the notion of affective proximity to make sense of local media practitioners’ reporting and witnessing of suffering in their country and community. I argue that the life-risking, and sometimes deadly, media practices of local reporters and witnesses, as well as their emotional labour, often do not feature in understandings of journalism when it is conceived as a purely professional discursive pursuit. I explain affective proximity in terms of an imagined space (or the lack thereof) between a media practitioner, on the one hand, and the event they are representing and participating in, on the other. In relation to Syria, I use it to analyse the word ‘revolution’ and what it mediates, the shifting boundaries between activism and journalism, and experiences of, and in, violence. I make the case that the study of affect and emotion in global news should be contextualized within the unequal power relations that give shape to journalistic roles and modes of representaiton.

基于对叙利亚媒体从业人员的采访，本文使用情感接近的概念来理解当地媒体从业人员对他们的国家和社区的报道和目睹。我认为，当新闻工作者被视为纯粹的专业话语追求时，当地记者和证人的冒着生命危险，有时甚至是致命的媒体行为，以及他们的情感劳动通常不属于新闻业。我一方面从媒体从业者与他们所代表和参与的事件之间的想象空间（或缺乏空间）来解释情感上的接近。关于叙利亚，我用它来分析“革命”一词及其调解，激进主义与新闻业之间不断变化的边界以及暴力经历和暴力经历。