Kristen Gillespie, reporter, Jordan, Syria. Covered both countries over the past decade and contributed to Syria coverage in 2011, wrote the Arabica column for World Crunch:

When it comes to reporting on the Arab revolutions, citizen journalists do a better job than most Western journalists.

Over the past decade, while I have been living in first Syria then Jordan, I have watched how Western media has reported on the region: Full of cliches and generalities. Since January 2011, with the ushering of the Arab revolutions, it has only gotten worse.

Okay, so cliched coverage of the Middle East is nothing new in American papers and magazines. But some publications such as The New Yorker have quickly become a master of the genre with the scribblings of the latest wide-eyed wanderer in the region, Wendell Steavenson, whose vignettes of Egypt and Syria carry political pretensions that are erroneously assigned larger value than their worth. Traffic in Damascus and "Ramadan treats drizzled with grape syrup," for example, are signs that the situation is normal, while out-of-season sales and empty restaurants are signs that it is not. Which is it?

Steavenson has spent years in the Middle East and has an impressive string of reporting credits. But she remains unable to decode the signposts in front of her to draw substantial conclusions, and readers continually miss out on opportunities to learn about what is driving the Arab revolutions. Steavenson is at her best as a stenographer, transcribing insightful observations from people on the ground, but doesn't know what to do with them. Added with a lack of Arabic, and Steavenson misses common linguistic and cultural cues that reduce her articles to little more than coming-of-age journal entries. A reliance on translators and elites result in articles that provide shallow, trite coverage of the Arab revolutions, which are about more than walking through streets, hanging out in cafes and "being introduced" to people (by whom, exactly we also wonder?)

Steavenson's articles are top-heavy with long paragraphs of boilerplate history that have the feel of Wikipedia entries. She likes to remind readers that she is in the field and present, especially when others are speaking. Two recent articles, "Roads to Freedom (August 29, 2011) about Syria, and "Who Owns the Revolution?" (August 1, 2011) on Egypt, illustrate that point, with dozens of instances of "told me," "I heard from...," "When I was introduced to...," "I asked..." "I started to tell him," "I said," and on and on. (Highlight: Traumatized man from Hama still in shock after escaping the siege. Steavenson offers him water, and to stop telling his story if he wishes: "Twice, I put my hand on his arm and told him that he could stop if he wanted. He shook his head.") Seriously? This is reporting?

Readers patient enough to slog through the usual roster of "unnamed Western diplomats," English-speaking elites and pundits in both articles will find small nuggets of insight - one Syrian artist, for example, notes that Damascus residents are largely pro-regime "either because they have their benefit from it or because they are afraid." The Egypt article features this gem from writer Alaa al-Asawni: "An Egyptian could live and die after doing his military service without knowing anything about the army." Another insightful interviewee is Seif Allah Fahmy, a consultant to Egyptian defense contractors and unapologetic fan of the military.

She also falls into another trap that those without local language skills often do: Steavenson notes in parentheses a comment Fahmy makes that questioning the military is a "red line." A red line, she writes, "is a term I have heard many Egyptians use when referring to a subject that they did not dare discuss." In fact, a "red line" is a direct translation into English of al khut al ahmar, which is standard Arabic used around the region to mean a taboo topic.

Whether it's "labyrinthine passages" and "hidden courtyards" of the Old City in Damascus, "Sunni worshippers mingling with Shia pilgrims" or the most tired cliche of all, that Syria is a secular state (it is not - Sharia law is the foundation of Personal Status laws), Steavenson writes thousands and thousands of words on the Middle East almost entirely devoid of substance, and forgotten almost immediately after consumed.

The reports lack context, substance, confidence and heart. It's a shame because readers need and deserve solid contextual reporting about these revolutions. There is serious, solid reporting out there (see Anthony Shadid's "Sons of No One," anything by The Guardian's Ghaith Abu-Ahad and others). In the case of Syria, a scan of Arabic clips on YouTube provides a deeper, more intimate look into how Syrian farmers, children, teenagers and countless others risk their lives, using their mobile phones and their voices to capture scenes from their towns and streets. These unwitting citizen journalists are the true chroniclers of their revolutions, and it is their voices that are telling the real story.