Arab Students Awarded Journalism Internships
Seated in a corner of CNN’s bustling Atlanta newsroom, surrounded by televisions displaying news from around the world, student Ghinwa Yateem is getting an opportunity that most aspiring journalists can only dream of: firsthand experience at one of the world’s most powerful media organizations. As an intern with CNN International, Yateem, who is from Lebanon, spends her days monitoring Arab news channels and newspapers and translating the day’s breaking news from Arabic to English.
"I feel like I’m really helping, like I’m contributing," says Yateem, whose first week on the job netted major headlines — the passing of the reins to a new Iraqi government and Saddam Hussein’s appearance before an Iraqi tribunal. The budding journalist is one of five students from the Middle East and North Africa spending the summer with media professionals in Atlanta, as part of a Georgia State-sponsored internship program.
Though Yateem says the Lebanese media are "not as free" or as technologically advanced as their U.S. counterparts, she’s learning valuable lessons to share with other journalists abroad.
"I’ve learned how to see another point of view and to stay more objective — that’s something I can take home," she says.
In all, 12 journalism students from universities in Lebanon, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates were chosen from competitive workshops in their home countries to receive hands-on training at U.S. newspapers, and radio and television stations. Interns also got a taste of American college life while taking classes at Georgia State, the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, and the University of Missouri at Columbia.
The scholarships were awarded by Georgia State’s Center for International Media Education on behalf of its sponsors — the Arab-U.S. Association for Communication Educators, and the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The awards are part of a $300,000 project to bring 30 journalism students to the United States from universities in the Palestinian Authority and seven Middle Eastern countries — Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.