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When the Adham Center
introduced, as an experiment, a special course in broadcasting Arabic for its
second-year students, Lena El Ghadban (class of 2002) didn't think she'd
bother - after all, even though she was an AUC graduate student, she was already
an established English-language correspondent for Nile TV, who also presented
news bulletins and "light" shows, and she felt more confident about broadcasting
in English than in Arabic. But at the last minute El Ghadban changed her mind,
and by taking the course ended up changing her career. She is now Cairo correspondent
for Al Jazeera, broadcasting in Arabic.
At the time, El Ghadban
was producing English-language stories for both CNBC Europe and the Adham Center
workshop but, she says, it was the opportunity the course provided to write Arabic
scripts and attend critiques of Arabic stories by the other students that helped
her "to break the psychological barrier" to working as a journalist in Arabic.
All of her reporting now
for Al Jazeera is in Arabic. "It's not as difficult as I thought," she remarks.
Al Jazeera staff gave her lots of help at first. But she says that most of the
credit for her success as an Arabic broadcaster goes to that Arabic course at
the Adham Center.
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Changing channels also
has meant moving into a different broadcasting culture. Al Jazeera is a news and
public affairs channel addressing the entire Arab region in general about world
affairs and in only one language - Arabic. Nile TV, on the other hand, available
by satellite throughout the region, addresses primarily the foreign community
inside and outside Egypt by broadcasting in English, French, and Hebrew. Nile
TV focuses mainly on Egyptian issues, while Al Jazeera has established itself
as both the most popular news channel in the Arab world and a strong global TV
station, competing with CNN and BBC, both of whom, along with ABC, frequently
take Al Jazeera footage.
How did the Adham Centre
contribute to El Ghadban's career as a correspondent? She says that it had taught
her international reporting standards. Whether in field production, script writing,
shooting her own story, or editing, the Adham Center introduced her to the international
guidelines used by professional stations.
El Ghadban's main job
at Al Jazeera is reporting since other staff members do the shooting and editing.
But her technical skills in those two areas have helped her in cases of emergency:
if the cameraman is missing, she shoots and sometimes edits as well. The mastery
of all of the skills required to produce news stories that she acquired when studying
at the Adham Centre has given her the capability to work in any professional TV
station.
Lena is enjoying her new
experience as Cairo correspondent at Al Jazeera, even though it is quite demanding.
"I am very happy working in Arabic," Lena confides. All the same, she still misses
her Nile TV "light" shows, which she considers very interesting. By establishing
herself as a professional reporter and correspondent in one of the world's leading
all-news TV stations, however, she has taken a major step forward in her media
career.
The Adham Center's Arabic
Journalism course is no longer experimental. It is now a two-semester component
of the TV Journalism MA program.
By
Azza Enanie
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