Today in Saudi Arabia there are changes coming in every field, the most important being women entering many hitherto unconsidered fields in pursuit of a career. Arab News, which among its many pioneering roles, has been in the vanguard of employing women.
When Arab News is mentioned, few will recognize that this paper has had a leading role in furthering the career of working women in Saudi Arabia. They have done themselves and the Arabic press in the Kingdom proud with their grit in pursuing a career in writing in the male-dominated field. Early in the paper’s life, women were writing in small numbers as contributors or columnists, but they were few in numbers and mainly in Arabic.
It needed a trailblazer, and found one in Arab News, to set a new trend while also leading an emerging group of career journalists in English-language newspapers. They wanted to know all the intricacies of how the paper was produced. But it needed these initial small steps for the women in Arab News to be up and running.
Faiza Ambah led the way when she joined Arab News in the late 1980s thus becoming the first in a long list of women journalists in the Kingdom. “It was my first job as a journalist,” said Faiza. “At first I was part-time, working from home. About a year later I started working out of the newsroom in a cubbyhole with reporters on both sides. I especially enjoyed the interaction with my colleagues from the Indian Subcontinent, a region I knew very little about till then.”
She managed to break a pattern that was forced on other female journalists in the Arabic papers. They were limited to working in the family pages of their papers. Faiza broke new ground with interviews with politicians and social figures.
In 1990 the Gulf War brought new experiences for journalists. Taboo issues such as political reform and women driving were tackled in what Faiza describes as “a palpable easing of press restrictions.”
Faiza was the first woman reporter in Arab News, and was followed by Hanan Ashi who was to be the first Saudi girl to work at the desk in Arab News. She worked on the features desk.
Hanan was a shy introvert with a prodigious aptitude. What Faiza did for reporting, Hanan, who studied at the American University in Cairo, did for editing and production. The doors had been opened, albeit reluctantly. On Jan. 15, 1992, I walked into Arab News newsroom as a trainee. At that time, working as journalist in an English-language paper was not on the menu for girls who sought jobs. After trying my luck as a teacher I found myself looking around for a more fulfilling job.
While talking to a relative about how hard it is to find a job that would give me satisfaction, ruling out teaching and medicine of course, I could not think what to do. So he asked, “Had you thought of becoming a journalist?”
The idea was new, I had not thought about it before. He then told me that Arab News, for which he was working at the time, was employing girls. So it happened that I met Editor in Chief Khaled Almaeena for a brief interview and he told me to start immediately. He asked me to come regularly to the office to be trained first. And that was the day when I joined Arab News.
My first day felt strange; I was in an all-male environment, walking into a room where only one other girl was sitting at a desk. I was introduced to Hanan Ashi, who was the only girl working in Arab News, as Faiza had by then spread her wings and flown to greater heights.
I still remember Hanan carrying a tennis racket with her to the office because she would go play tennis after work. Hanan and I started the Arab News female page editorial team. I joined the features desk as a trainee and also wrote a weekly column on the old social life of Jeddah. From there I started learning how to manually lay out a page — we did not have computers then. Editing was done on paper and a layout was drawn on a paper dummy. I found myself enjoying this job, appreciating the difference between a static job as a teacher and the day-to-day experience with news.
Our small team was expanded with another girl joining us at work, also as a page editor. Taghreed Ambah joined us to become the third member in the girls’ room. Taghreed, or T.J. as we used to call her, was a robust girl, who lived in Paris and the States and was full of energy. She was also a crossword buff, and invariably managed to finish the Arab News crossword without breaking a sweat.
Soon after computers were introduced in our offices. Training started for staff members on how to use design programs, so the shift was made from paper tickers and pencil-drawn dummies to fully computerized pages. The first two pages done on computer were made by Hanan Ashi and L. Ramnarayan, who was and still is the godfather of Arab News trainees. Desktop publishing had come to stay.
Our small team was increasing steadily with the advent of Lamis Mufti, who studied political science in Paris, and was strong and fair in all her dealings. Lamis was interested in politics and had endless discussions with the other editors on all the important political issues of the time. She was versatile in French and a veritable Francophone, but could hold her own in Arabic discussions too. She was also innovative and diligent, but soon after her marriage we lost a good editor, as she chose motherhood ahead of her career.
Before Lamis departed, it was Hanan who left first to start her career as an academic at King Abdul Aziz University and Dahlia Rehaimy joined.
Dahlia had a German background and between the four of us we had different experience of life outside the Kingdom, having lived in Egypt most of my life myself. Our working relations soon led to strong friendships.
Now after 30 years Arab News “ladies” room is crowded and full with ambitious women whose work makes them landmarks in English journalism. Among them are: Kholood Alqahtani, Maha Akeel, Somayya Jabarti, Sarah Shaban and Ghada Addas.
And all bring with them their own contribution — be it translations, reporting, editing or designing — and our interactions with Molouk Y. Ba-Isa in the Eastern Province makes Arab News a complete newspaper. Each one has her individuality, but each one is ready to blend into one in the team. That makes working in Arab News unique and the “girl’s team” contributes to that uniqueness.
(Abeer Mishkhas is Review editor at Arab News.)
