Laila Al-Arian: Journalist Extraordinaire

By: Nadia S. Mohammad

As an author, writer and producer there is little Laila Al-Arian has done that she has not done well. Her work has appeared in The Nation, Alternet, The Independent, The Guardian, The Australian, United Press International, and the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. She also co-wrote Collateral Damage: America’s War Against Iraqi Civilians (Nation Books) with Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, Chris Hedges. The book is based on their 2007 Nation magazine investigative piece “The Other War,” which was selected as one of Project Censored’s 25 most important under-covered news stories of 2008. Currently, Laila is a producer at Al-Jazeera English (AJE) and here is what she had to say about her experience so far.

Elan: Tell me a little bit about how you got your start as a journalist and what made you decide to turn it into a career?

Laila Al-Arian: Well, like many journalists I knew I wanted to be a journalist at a young age. For me, it was at the age of 12. I just always loved the news, watching it and being in the know. I was basically a news junkie. I loved the idea of reporting, writing and expressing myself that way. I would read Newsweek and Times magazine very regularly instead or probably more age-appropriate stuff. I worked in high school on the student newspaper and then I interned at a weekly alternative newspaper in Tampa where I grew up. The college I went to didn’t have a journalism major, so I studied English literature and really focused on honing my writing skills. I also did some internships in journalism – like the Washington Report and USA Today. After college I got my first job with them as well. I also worked at a community newspaper in DC. Later I went to graduate school in journalism at Columbia. From there I interned at The Nation magazine in New York and that evolved into a fellowship where I basically helped co-write an article about the Iraq war, an investigative piece with another journalist, Chris Hedges, the Pulitzer prize-winning writer. Our article turned into a book called Collateral Damage. After the book came out, I started working for Al-Jazeera, been there almost 3 years.

I’m sorry; I sound like I’m reciting my resume.

Elan: No. No. Chris Hedges is actually a favorite author of mine. How did you end up collaborating with him on Collateral Damage?

LA: Well, I was an intern at The Nation and he was a fellow at the Nation Institute, which is affiliated with the magazine. He actually had the idea to interview Iraq war veterans as they returned from the war to ask them about war crimes, atrocities, their experiences and what they had seen and done in Iraq. Since it was a major project and he wanted to interview dozens of people he thought it would be helpful to have someone working with him on the project. As an intern I was very fortunate to have been assigned that project. I immediately began working on that during the summer of 2006. It took lot of work to actually find the veterans and conduct such in-depth interviews, which were at a minimum an hour or sometimes several hours long.

Elan: What brought you from that to AJE? You could have gone to any network probably at that point. Why did you decide AJE over others?

LA: AJE is very special place. It’s a place that really values reporting in the traditional sense – investigative work. While a lot of US networks have actually been cutting back their budgets by closing foreign bureaus, AJE is rapidly expanding globally so it’s very exciting to be at a place you know is still starting out. I also liked that AJE is still very committed to the journalistic values that I’m committed to as well, like giving voice to the voiceless, covering undercover stories and that sort of that kind of thing. So I joined because really believed in the channel’s vision and principles.

Elan: In light of recent happenings in the Arab world, AJE has gotten a lot of positive notoriety. It is even being carried here in the States on a very limited basis. How do you see it having a truly competitive voice with other major news networks like CNN, Fox and MSNBC? Like the BBC, for example, is an international news organization that has had a presence in the US market for quite some time now, however, it is not revered by the American public in the same way that CNN and Fox is, currently.

LA: Well, I think the Egyptian revolution and the other on-going events in the Middle East have shown that America actually does have an appetite for foreign news. They find a channel like AJE very useful and enlightening. As a matter of fact, our web traffic went up 2500% during the Egyptian revolution and the majority of those hits came from North America so we see a real big difference happening, in a way. During these kinds of historic events people do care about foreign news. Also, I think Americans realize you in a lot of ways that it [international news] does affect them. And even if it’s not a massive audience, we should have at least a very committed and very active audience. As you know, Hilary Clinton, herself, recently applauded AJE for its style and coverage of the news. It is a channel that does not show advertising, shows real news. There’s no fluff, you’ll never see fluff on AJE.

Elan: Throughout your career you’ve been very outspoken as a Muslim journalist, particularly about Muslim women and the media. What are some of the challenges that you have faced being Muslim woman and a journalist?

LA: One of the challenges facing many minority journalists is the fact that oftentimes there are suspicions that they have a bias. Minority journalists have to show that they are just as objective as any other journalist and that they’re professional.

Another thing I’ve noticed throughout the years, broadly speaking, is that among the Muslim community there is reluctance in parents to see journalism as a respectable field. Of course, not all parents are like this and my parents are not included in this. I think this field is something that they should encourage their children to enter and that it’s misguided to discourage it. It is important for our society, as Americans, to have as much diversity as possible, and have Muslim Americans included in bringing that different perspective.

Elan: What advice would you give Muslim women who want to sort of follow in your footsteps?

LA: The most important thing is to just get experience – get your foot in the door. Begin writing if you want to write. Begin doing television or video production if you want to get into broadcast. Now that journalism is becoming more and more integrated, you should really learn all the different forms. Print, broadcast, online, etc. – all of that has sort of merged into one form and you should learn as much as you can. In addition to that, the fundamentals of good journalism are good writing and good reporting. So developing those skills are critical and just being humble. I think a lot of people want to start at the very best journalistic organizations. But I started at a very small magazine doing community journalism and that was critical to helping me become an experienced and good journalist. I think young journalists should take whatever they can get and work to move up.

Elan: Are there any examples of people that you looked up to in terms of journalistic skill? Like you said you were such a news junkie growing up, so who are the ones that you most admired?

LA: I admired a lot of people. I mean Amy Goodman is one of my favorite journalists. I think she does amazing work. You know her colleague Jeremy Scahill from The Nation does good work, too. Chris Hedges obviously is a very, very important voice to me. Ken Silverstein of Harper’s is a very good experienced investigative journalist. There were many more people that I looked up to, but it’s hard when you’re put on the spot to remember all the names!

Elan: Do you get any downtime at all? You’ve taken on so many projects that seem to be all related towards your work.

LA: Yes. I love to travel, so anytime I have vacation time or any downtime I love just travelling. I think as a journalist it’s very important to travel and see the world. To see how people live and then bring all your experiences to your work. It sort of broadens the mind.

Elan: And what are your plans for the next few years? Maybe a new book?

LA: I’d like to continue, hopefully, doing good journalism, producing and participating in the journalistic community and just telling stories that need to be told. I’ve co-written one book, at some point, I’d like to continue writing more. Maybe a few years down the line, I’d definitely like to write other books and just continue expanding my mind.