With over 20 years of experience in the media industry, Dima Khatib is the first Arab correspondent to ever be based in Latin America. As the Latin America Bureau Chief & Correspondent at Al Jazeera, Dima has interviewed several personalities and heads of state, including Venezuela’s late president, Hugo Chavez. Her working languages are Arabic, English, French, and Spanish. She also speaks other languages such as Portuguese, Italian and German. Dima is listed among the most influential Arabs on social media. Her Twitter page, @Dima_Khatib, has more than 295,000 followers. Prior to her work with Al Jazeera, Dima has worked as a Broadcast Journalist and Translator at Swiss Radio International in Bern. She was also AFP’s correspondent in Doha for 3 years. Dima blogs at dimakhatib.blogspot.com, speaks at conferences, writes opinion pieces in Arab newspapers, and will publish her first book this year. In this interview with Bayt.com, Dima shares her passion for journalism and advice for young journalists and writers who want to excel in this field.
Changing mindsets; opening people's minds to new perspectives and widening their horizon.
When I debuted it was not necessary, especially in the Arab World where studying journalism was equivalent to studying regime propaganda. I did not study journalism myself. However, nowadays things are different. I believe that you do need a journalism degree to get into the market, not necessarily to succeed though. Success will not depend on your degree alone. Journalism is not like other professions where what you learned in college is what you practice at work. It is a constantly changing environment with a lot of room for creativity and adjustment. This being said, there are exceptions. For example, self-made bloggers who have excelled in their own online work could well make a career in journalism without a degree.
Perseverance is key to success. Clarity in your objectives. Believing in yourself. And most importantly: dreaming! My personal dreams translated into collective dreams. For example going to Latin America was my own dream. I integrated it into the plans of a big network and we made it come true for both of us! I wanted to be out there talking to Arabs about Latin America. What better platform than Al Jazeera? It was just perfect. But alongside dreams you need to be well prepared. In my case I studied Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, I read tons and tons of books, and I followed news on Latin America from afar for a long time. You also need to work very hard, as in as much as it takes, even if it takes more than 24 hours straight sometimes or often, even if you have to make sacrifices in your personal life at times or often. It will be up to you to set that balance. Often success in your career will come at a cost. But if you think it is worth it then that is all that matters. It was worth it for me.
Yes of course it does. It is a bigger responsibility. You have to keep up with the expectation. But it is also a golden opportunity to reach out to people and convey the messages you want to convey. It is gratifying to see your impact on people when you have credibility and they trust you.
It made me develop in a way I never expected. Online I write about anything I want, I put my personal views, I interact with people without barriers. It is very different than my work within an organization where I abide by rules and work circumstances. I find it awesome that social media allowed me to be actively part of Arab Revolutions when I was in faraway Venezuela. In the end I believe that writing online made a writer out of me. Working for a news network made a journalist out of me. I like both!
Follow your own path, whether it differs from other people's paths or is similar to theirs. Don't be afraid and remember that you are different from everyone else. Just find your own way of becoming the journalist or the writer you strive to be. And keep writing, keep thinking, keep trying. It is a competitive world out there but it is also full of opportunity. And never compromise on the truth. That will be the end of your journalism dream.
