WUNRN
WOMEN'S FEATURE SERVICE
India - New Delhi
Arab
Women Journalists Workshop
Middle
East Media Challenges, Skills, Courage
By Mehru Jaffer
Vienna - Women's Feature Service- Life is tough in certain parts of the Middle
East and tougher for women there. However, for female journalists working in
the region, the daily grind can seem more treacherous and demanding than
any place on earth.
At a two-day workshop on media training in Vienna, organised by the Austrian
Ministry of European and Foreign Affairs, held earlier this year women Arab
journalists offered a glimpse of the way they live and work in the troubled
region of the Middle East. The focus of the workshop was on women in the media
and the important role they play in a female-defined media.
The panel discussion at the Kreisky Forum for International Dialogue
illustrated the exigencies and the enduring circumstances that women
journalists face. Three journalists from Egypt, Israel and Palestine joined
Gudrun Harrer, senior editor of the Austrian daily 'Der Standard' for the
discussion.
Viola Raheb, an Austrian theologian of Arab origin and moderator of the meet,
pointed out the absence of Taghreed Al Khoudary, a Palestinian colleague.
Taghreed, the 'New York Times' reporter in Gaza, trains women at the Women
Affairs Center in Communication Skills and Media. However, the Fulbright scholar,
was unable to participate in the workshop and panel discussion as she had been
refused permission to leave Gaza. (People are not allowed to travel in and out
of Gaza without permission from Israel.)
"It is sad that our colleague Taghreed could not come. But again, this is
part of the reality in which we live. We spent at least two weeks on the phone
both with Tel Aviv and Cairo trying to get her out. In the end, it was
impossible," Viola regretted.
Laila
Odeh is a Palestinian from Bethlehem who lives in Jerusalem. Fluent in English
and Russian, Laila has been a journalist since she was 14 and has thus spent
more than half her life in the profession. She reports for various satellite
channels, such as Abu Dhabi TV and Bahrain TV. In 2001, Laila was conferred the
Abu Dhabi Arab Press Prize for Personality of the Year. However, she has faced
challenges all her life - her first stemming from home.
"It was a challenge to get my father to agree (to her being a journalist).
It was important for me to have my father's approval. That is the way it is in
our society. The other challenge was to prove myself as a journalist because we
live in the hot spot of the world and the situation there is very difficult. As
a woman, I try to do my best. I don't try to be a man but try to be as good as
the best professional on the job. I do this not for fame but for my future and
the future of my children," explained Laila to a packed auditorium.
Describing the most difficult moment of her life, Laila said that after her
family heard she had been shot in Rafah (in the Gaza Strip); they forbade her
children to watch television. When Laila finally got to see them in a hospital
in East Jerusalem, her children were afraid to hug her. They were scared of
being covered in her blood.
As a journalist, Laila has nearly lost her life on at least three
occasions.Despite the trials that have come her way, her life-long struggle
continues to be remaining objective about the fact that she is a Palestinian; a
refugee with Israeli identity papers; and a Jordanian passport holder living
under occupation. And in the midst of all the regionalism that she lives
through, Laila reminds herself that she is above all a human being.
"My brother was killed by the Israelis. It was very difficult to cope with
the loss. But I decided not to fight the Israelis with weapons but to say that
even though my country is under occupation, even though the Israelis challenge
me... I will not give up and will retaliate only like an educated woman."
The biggest challenge for Laila is coping with her Israeli colleagues and
getting them to understand her. "From the outside, Hamas is a terrorist
organisation; from the Palestinian point of view, Hamas is fighting occupation.
Hamas is resistance," states Laila. (Hamas is a Palestinian Sunni Islamist
organisation and political party. It currently holds a majority of seats in the
legislative council of the Palestinian Authority.)
Also present was Randa Abou Azm, the Cairo bureau chief of the 'Al Arabia' news
channel that was launched in 2003. Responding to whether she, as a female
journalist, was afraid of the rising popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood in
Egypt, Randa replied in the negative. "You can always make a mistake in
your choice but as long as there is democracy the mistake can be put into
perspective. Egypt is strong enough to handle any extremist movement as long as
democracy is the practice of the day," she elaborated. (Muslim Brotherhood
is an influential political Islamist group, particularly in Egypt.)
A single mother, Randa is grateful to her parents for providing her with an
education that has made it easier for her to get a job. Starting out with the
Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC) - the first Arab satellite channel
launched in the Middle East - in 1995, Randa has also experienced difficulties
as a woman media professional.
Bringing the Israeli experiences and her understanding of the media in Israel
was documentary film director and television journalist at Channel Two News,
Anat Saragusti.
As in the case of working mothers, Anat, who monitors the Israeli media
coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict, has always struggled to find a balance,
even at home. As a single mother, she gave up a career as a reporter and moved
to the newsroom for a few years. Despite the conscious choice, the thought that
she did not accompany her son on his first day to school still haunts her.
Throwing light on issues that infuriate women journalists, she recalled the
occasion when she was invited to work for a commercial Israeli television
network in Gaza. "To have a woman in the Gaza Strip was to draw viewers to
the new television channel. That is why they chose me. They chose me not just
because I was an expert on the conflict but also because I was a woman. Gaza affected
me at two levels. At the personal level, the comparison between the children in
the refugee camps and the life of my son living in a comfortable, normal home
was overwhelming. As a journalist I tried to give the Palestinians I met names
and did not talk about them in general. However, when the TV station needed an
analysis about the situation in Gaza, they brought in the military
correspondent to talk to the viewers, while I got a minute-and-a-half to report
about Palestinian families. This bothered me and I was so furious."
To give her viewers a different picture, Anat rented a house in Sderot (in the
South District of Israel) and lived there for a month. "I took a small
camera with me and did a sort of a diary from Sderot. I tried to feel the reality.
Usually, journalists hit and run. They come for a day, they see what they see
and they return to the studio, editing two minutes of footage and airing it.
Sderot has been in the news for seven years and I wanted to know what was going
on there. When I lived there I saw a completely different picture."
Gudrun wrapped up the discussion by adding that as an outsider she tries to be
fair to both sides in her writing, admittedly a difficult task.
Courtesy: Women's Feature Service
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