Delivering Emirates News

As a journalist with the English language Emirates News in Dubai, every day is different. As my colleague, reporter Sheri Jamkhou, puts it, “The best points of the job are that it’s not monotonous, you get to meet different people from all walks of life, and a new opportunity arises every day.” For most members of the team (and any journalist with even a minor addiction to news) the day starts as soon as we switch on a television, scan through internet news sites or scroll through our Twitter feeds. We bring ourselves up-to-speed on the local, regional and international news of the day and begin to consider which stories may be appropriate for us to cover in that evening’s half-hour bulletin. As a part of Dubai Media Incorporated (a Dubai Government department), our news priorities start in Dubai, move to the rest of the UAE, the Gulf and Middle East, and finally broaden out to international stories, where we have time in the bulletin. The main reason we focus on local stories over international news, is that there are cable networks and international providers who already cover global news well, but our niche, our advantage and indeed our charter is to provide news on Dubai to our Anglophone audience.