cameras | Media Unlimited

“We need journalists to tell the story and tell it well,” Media Unlimited director Magda Abu-Fadil told media graduate students at Lebanon’s Notre Dame University during a Skype discussion on journalism and its transformation.

Abu-Fadil Skypes with NDU students

The virtual seminar “Journalism in the Internet Age: Trends, Tools and Technologies” November 15, 2017 began with a presentation reviewing Abu-Fadil’s evolution from an analog to a digital journalist in a career spanning over four decades.

“Whether you’re using analog or digital tools, what matters is the content,” she told students of Rouba El Helou-Sensenig’s JOU 640 class.

MU director explains her start as an analog, manual journalist

The discussion also focused on adapting journalism skills to incorporate technological changes like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR).

Demonstrating the use of a smartphone for mobile journalism

Abu-Fadil explained how newsrooms must reinvent themselves just to keep up.

She said what she could do with a large bag of equipment – cameras, lenses, filters, batteries, rolls of film, recorders, notebooks and more – she can now accomplish with a small smartphone, some pocket-size accessories, and apps.

Becoming a journalist today requires a modified skill set to the one needed decades ago, but the principles of news gathering, fact checking, story telling and ethics remain the same, Media Unlimited director Magda Abu-Fadil told students in Doha.

Magda Abu-Fadil on journalism today

She addressed Georgetown University School of Foreign Service students and faculty members in October in Qatar on the evolution of journalism, on becoming a foreign correspondent, on politics, and on media ethics.

Informal lunch talk with Georgetown-Qatar students and faculty

Abu-Fadil showed her audience how she had evolved as a reporter whose local and foreign assignments meant excellent preparations for stories through constant learning and knowledge as well as what was then available as tools of the trade.

Evolution of a journalist

The tools included notebooks, pens, recorders, batteries, cameras, lenses, filters, flashlights, tripods, and typewriters.

Mobile journalists, or mojos, including herself, using mobile, portable, connected devices have mostly replaced those earlier items, although several remain staples for reporters and photographers, she said.

Today’s mojos need fewer encumbering tools

The informal lunch gathering included students from Northwestern University’s Qatar campus who attend joint media classes at Georgetown.

Questions on whether it’s worth becoming a journalist

In another meeting with Georgetown students, Abu-Fadil spoke on media, culture and politics in the Middle East, focusing primarily on ethics (or the lack thereof) in print, broadcast, online and social media.

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“Journalism in the Internet Age”: MU Director to NDU Students