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Bahraini journalist Ismaeel Naar, who started his career in journalism writing the Youth Talk column in GulfWeekly, has scooped one of the media industry’s most prestigious prizes.
He has been named as ‘Outstanding Young Arab Journalist of the Year’ in recognition of a series of news articles and features he has penned. Ismaeel hopes his achievement will inspire others.
The 25-year-old recently received his award from the ITP Publishing Group and APP Media Groups during a glitzy gala dinner event in Dubai where he is currently based. Ismaeel said: “I feel extremely proud at winning the award and carrying both my family’s name and Bahrain’s on to a global stage.
This is proof that hard work and being persistent in following your dreams pays off in the end!” The panel of judges studying entries included author of the Confessions of a War Child trilogy Chaker Khazaal, former UK ambassador to Lebanon Tom Fletcher, filmmaker Farah Nabulsi, columnist Fasial Al Yafai, journalist Momen Mahmoud, OMG (MENA) chief executive officer Elie Khouri, Asda’a Burson Marstellar chief executive Sunil John, humanitarian Mouna Elhaimoud and MBC senior vice president Mazen Hayek.
Ismaeel first appeared in this newspaper after penning a Letter to the Editor about his 49-year-old Filipino mother Zenaida’s unsuccessful late battle with breast cancer, urging other mums to make sure they have regular health checks. “I am told the number of women seeking cancer testing is very small and many either detect their cancer in the middle stages or too late for any chance of survival,” he wrote at the time.
“The moral of my story is that we should never take anything for granted. Just two months with cancer can change a person’s life forever. “Therefore, one should never get upset when one’s mother requests for the rubbish to be thrown out or even doing a simple homework.
“We always want to grow up fast, yet we fail to remember that a mother is everything to us. She is our solace when we need it at the most difficult times.” The letter was reproduced on the front page. Ismaeel was 16 at the time, a student at Modern Knowledge School and lived in East Riffa with his Bahraini father Rashid, an aircraft dispatcher at Bahrain Airport Services, and his twin brother Abdulrahman and younger sister, Ameena.
Ismaeel said: “Writing has always been a passion of mine and being half Bahrainihalf Filipino, I saw the issues being faced in Bahrain with a ‘dual lens’ but rarely spotted someone from my own home town or background writing in our newspapers, let alone for international publications or TV news channels.”
The talented reporter recently returned to the kingdom to share his success with his family and said his father has been his ‘biggest inspiration’ throughout his life. “My father is extremely proud of the award and I owe my biggest thanks to him for being a pillar of strength to my two siblings and me ever since our mother passed away from breast cancer in 2007,” he explained.
“He has always supported us and told us to follow our passion and never listen to the naysayers – like those who told me early on that a career in journalism was a waste of time. “He is my biggest inspiration.
He’s lived a life of hardship and lost his wife, father and best friend too early. Being a single father to three teenage children was difficult but he always made sure we had enough to eat and studied at the best high schools in Bahrain.
“He never complained and woke up every day to go to work to ensure we had a decent shot at life. It’s his story of resilience, love and passion for his family that I see in every person and story I tell as a journalist.”
After revealing his ambition to become a journalist to GulfWeekly Editor Stan Szecowka, Ismaeel was appointed the publication’s first Youth Talk columnist with the brief to focus on issues important to teenagers living in the kingdom.
Stan said: “I knew he would be a star from the moment I read his poignant letter about his beloved mother. “During our first conversation, he said he wanted to be a writer and it just so happened I was looking to introduce a section written by a teenage reader and the Youth Talk column was born and has been running successfully ever since with different senior school pupils over the years expressing their news, views and opinions – now 10 years in 2017! “Congratulations Ismaeel! You deserve your success and you’ve made your family and your first newspaper proud.”
Ismaeel believes that during his early days with GulfWeekly he learned the value of highlighting local issues and posing the right questions to encourage debate. He added: “I’ll always be grateful for giving me my first chance.
It did certainly pave the way to gaining entrance at the prestigious Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern, where it was rare to see someone of my age at the time being an established, published columnist.”
After graduating, he held fellowship roles with the Financial Times in New York where he covered the 2012 US elections and then Euronews where he worked on the education and Middle East politics beat.
Ismaeel then worked fulltime with Al Jazeera English as a news producer on the Middle East Desk before moving to Dubai to work for Al Arabiya News Channel as an online journalist on its English language website in August 2015.
He was one of the youngest reporters to cover the frontlines of the Yemeni conflict, was the first to break the news of the Hajj stampede tragedy in 2015 and has been lead reporter on numerous other major news stories.
Ismaeel said: “I’ve always wanted to be a ‘conflict’ reporter ever since I knew I was going to be a journalist but covering war, any war, be it in Yemen, or Syria, can be very challenging.
These are people’s stories and journalists have a tremendous responsibility not to mince words and tell the truth as best we can. “Covering war has its dangers and war journalists have it tough at times but that’s nothing compared to the subjects of our articles.
Covering the border city of Najran, for example, that has lost so many of its people to indiscriminate rocket attacks from Houthi militias … and ordinary folk somehow try to carry on with their lives every day.”
In his story Covering conflicts: Lessons from the Saudi-Yemen border, Ismaeel told the tale of nine-yearold Saudi Mahdi al-Abbas who was recovering at King Khaled’s Hospital from injuries suffered during the conflict.
His first persona narrative was descriptive of the pain the family felt and the losses they had suffered. As for the Hajj stampede, it was Ismaeel’s first breaking news experience. He said: “My reporting of the story was viewed by nearly a million people worldwide.
It was a lot of pressure to tell the story as accurately as possible in this age of ‘breaking news first’.” While these headlines captured the attention of people from around the world, his favourite piece of work featured Kuwait’s native Christian population and he added that his ‘favourite’ interview subject to date has been Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa.
Ismaeel said: “In this day and age where people in the West too easily classify the Arab world as a region full of clashes between civilisations and religious divides – my story on Christians in the Gulf proved otherwise.
“I would also point out that my favourite interview was with His Excellency Shaikh Khalid. We spoke about his views on youth and diplomacy in an age of technology and his efforts to reach out to everyday people.”
Ismaeel aims to continue writing before pursuing a Master’s Degree in religion and politics in the UK. He added: “I’d like to give one piece of advice to young people in Bahrain, and that’s to always follow your passion and work hard at whatever field you choose.
“We’re a strong breed, us Bahrainis. It may be easy to give up when times are hard - and they are indeed challenging nowadays with low oil prices hitting Gulf economies hard. But hard work always pays off, I can’t reiterate that enough!”
Ismaeel’s twin now lives and works in Canada as an international student recruiter and adviser at the University of British Columbia. His sister works as head of marketing and events at Tenmou, a business angels’ company in Bahrain.
