JEDDAH, 31 March 2004 — The newsroom at Arab News was cheerfully invaded by a group of eighth-graders from the Waha International School in Jeddah yesterday.
The group toured the offices and spoke with Editor in Chief Khaled Al-Maeena and with Arab News journalists and staff.
Journalists Maha Akeel and Essam Al-Ghalib answered the students’ questions about how news is gathered, processed and finally presented in newspaper form.
Somaya Jabarti and Mahmoud Ahmad welcomed the group when they arrived, and spoke to them about the behind-the-scenes work involved in picking interesting stories from the local press.
“It is always good to see young people in the newsroom,” said Mahmoud Ahmad. “They are so keen to understand everything, their enthusiasm is infectious.”
Chief Reporter Roger Harrison set the tone for the day by posing questions on the obvious and not so obvious functions of a newspaper in the world of electronic media. The students also heard from the reporting team what is involved in telling and following up a developing story.
The students toured the on-the-premises printing press and saw one of Saudi Research and Publishing Company’s many magazines being printed.
The students were fascinated by the speed at which the pages came out.
“It’s very interesting,” said one, “but so noisy and smelly,” referring to the characteristic smell of wet ink in the machine room.
“It’s always fun to interact with young minds,” said Harrison of the visit. “Somewhere in that group there is possibly a future star reporter and editor or simply a bunch of people with a talent for looking critically at what is said in the media. Who knows? Today was about planting seeds and introducing possibilities to young minds.”
The students plan to use what they learned at Arab News and apply it to their curriculum that includes designing the front page of a newspaper.
