By Rakan Zainal
ABU DHABI – The American Community School in Abu Dhabi hosted the second Journalism Day on Saturday, Oct. 18, at Al Bateen in Abu Dhabi.
Dr. David W. Bulla, an associate professor of communication at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi, opened the event by briefly introducing the idea of journalism to the audience. Dr. Bulla said that a major element of journalism is for organizations like TV and radio stations, as well as newspapers and magazines, to have conversations with the communities they serve to discuss the issues of the day. Currently, he noted, journalists around the world are talking with their communities about the Ebola outbreak, which is centered in western Africa, although cases have also been reported in Spain and the United States.
In attendance at J-Day II were students from the American Community School in Abu Dhabi, the British School Al Khubairat, New York University-AD and ZU-AD. Forty-four people attended the event, which was held in ACS’s Elementary School Multi-Purpose Room and various lab classes on campus.
J-Day was co-sponsored by ACS and the ZU Student Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Dr. Bulla connected the ideas of journalism with the news media, stressing the importance of social media, as well as traditional media, specifically newspapers.
According to Dr. Bulla, “A reporter is much like a detective, he investigates and then he reports the facts to the public.” He said a journalist not only figures out what is happening, but then he also transmits what he has to the public.
“A journalist has to keep his or her audience in mind,” Dr. Bulla said.
Before concluding his introductory speech, Dr. Bulla emphasized four essential skills needed by a journalist in order to be successful.
“Skills in interviewing people, extremely professional writing skills, the ability to conduct proper research and an attitude that attracts positive attention – those are the essentials of journalism,” said Dr. Bulla.
Shortly after finishing his speech, Dr. Bulla had his students from ZU’s Society of Professional Journalists chapter conduct an icebreaker activity where everyone in attendance received a balloon with a question on a small piece of paper on the inside of it. Each person had to pop the balloon, introduce himself and answer the question.
Following the icebreaker, Dr. Bulla and the SPJ members escorted everyone to ACS’s Broadcast room, where Professor Paul Lowman, an instructor at Zayed University, held a workshop on preparing radio broadcasts and the tools needed to complete it. Students were assigned specific beats for the day and later returned to the lab to complete their broadcast packages.
Assisting Dr. Bulla and Professor Lowman was ACS’s principal, Mr. Edward Wexler.
The students gathered around with their laptops and smartphones as Dr. Bulla interviewed Mr. Wexler while Mr. Lowman operated the audio.
Mr. Wexler began the interview by discussing ACS students’ involvement with a unique global service experience, or what he likes to call a “service program,” where students from ACS travel around the world and participate in humanitarian activities.
“The service program is a mandatory program that students have to participate in,” Mr. Wexler said.
ACS students must do a set number of service hours before they can graduate. Although the international service program is not required, many students prefer doing it because of the diverse opportunities it provides.
Two weeks ago, students in the ninth and 10th grades from ACS went to Nepal and worked with children in an orphanage. Furthermore, other students went to Tanzania and Sri Lanka to provide humanitarian services.
“This program is important because it ensures students are participating in events beyond ACS,” Mr. Wexler said. “It gets them working with people from around the world.”
Up next was Mohannad Al Khatib of Sky News Arabia. He talked to the students about covering a recent United Nations meeting in New York.
Mr. Al Khatib, who hosts a nightly public affairs show from Sky News Arabia’s Abu Dhabi bureau, told a story about his taking a photograph of Tunisian President Mohamed Moncef Marzouki eating a salad during the conference.
“It was lunchtime, and Mr. Marzouki was eating his $10 salad with a plastic fork and knife with the journalists in the canteen at the U.N. while the other dignitaries were off eating at the Waldorf Astoria,” Mr. Al Khatib said. “I thought it was kind of interesting and snapped a shot. I put it up on Twitter, and it went viral. I had 3,500 hits. Who knew a shot with an iPhone would do better than a regular newscast?”
Although journalism was rated last year as the worst job in the United States, Mr. Al Khatib still sees hope for the future of the profession.
“Journalism not dying,” Mr. Al Khatib said. “It is evolving. It is changing technologically and economically, but there is greater knowledge out there than ever before. And we know have citizen journalists who break stories.”
Mr. Al Khatib also showed his own personal photography. Although he says he’s only an amateur, the veteran journalist has shown his photography in Beirut and plans a show in Abu Dhabi this coming winter.
“I don’t have a specialty,” he said. “I shoot people, landscapes, street scenes.”
These include photos from the Middle East and the United States.
After Mr. Al Khatib, Alireza Hajihosseini, who is the executive editor of CNN’s “Connect the World” news show, demonstrated to students how to make a news broadcast for TV. He showed them how CNN combines both canned and local stories to make a newscast.
Students attending J-Day then made a mock broadcast. They did the anchor lead-in and the on-the-scene reporting of the ACS event, and then Mr. Hajihosseini showed how the next story might be a feature from somewhere else in the world, such as a story on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent release of a tiger that swam to China and then attacked a henhouse. He also showed a story by ZU alumna Khadeeja Al Hosani on a falcon beauty pageant here in Abu Dhabi. Ms Al Hosani, who majored in converged media at ZU, is now a reporter for the network’s Abu Dhabi bureau.
Other J-Day speakers included Paul Lowman, who teaches communication at ZU and worked with students on an overall broadcast about the event; Alia Yunis, a ZU visual communication professor who discussed the upcoming Abu Dhabi Film Festival; Sana Bagersh, who publishes Tempo magazine (and is a former reporter for the Gulf News) who talked about her career in first journalism and then marketing; and Dr. Bulla, who discussed reporting and the basic values of journalism.
Attendees received a J-Day shirt from SPJ and ACS Viper water bottles. It was the second Journalism Day at ACS. The first was held in March.
This story was originally published on Oct. 18, 2014. It was re-uploaded on Dec. 23, 2020.
