‘I’m done with wars’

Vinita Bharadwaj meets Samia Nakhoul, bureau chief of news and TV in the Gulf for Reuters

"Dubai is definitely a less stressful environment to work in," she says, but one cannot accuse her of complacency as she starts questioning this interviewer about recent developments in the newspaper that has asked for Nakhoul's interview.

"It's part of the job," she says with a laugh, when complimented on her network and access to information.

Her nose for news started twitching at a very young age and she had no family influences that guided her towards the career path of a journalist.

Reporter first

"No one in my family was in the media. In fact I think I'm the first and only one," she says. However, it was growing up in Lebanon, watching the strife and conflict take place around her that got her actively involved in reporting.

"It was the period of the Lebanese Civil War and I was still a student in Beirut," she slowly recalls.

"Even though I was a student, I was the local correspondent for Reuters and there was never any doubt in my mind about what I wanted to do. I always worked with the same intensity," she says of a career that has seen her cover the First Gulf War, the insurgency in Cairo, the Middle East desk at Cyprus, London, Syria and now Dubai.

Despite her being present in many a scene of conflict and violence, Nakhoul's closest brush with death came in 2003, when the Palestine and Sheraton hotels were bombed in Baghdad.

A quick Google on the incident throws up reports of a Reuters cameraman dying in the incident and a reporter, photographer and technician sustaining injuries. That reporter was Nakhoul.

Contrary to anticipated silences or pensive reflections of the day, Nakhoul is very matter-of-fact in her narrative. No question is avoided. No silences. Just pure facts and straightforward reportage.

"My first thoughts were about my family. Who was going to inform them, what would they be thinking," she says. This was a day, when those inside the hotel after the bombing had no clue about what was taking place outside.

"Had they found Saddam?" was one of the immediate thoughts that came to her journalistic mind.

Experience counts

Though she couldn't see ["It must have been the blood flowing down from my head"], her instant reaction was to think about the rest of the crew and how to get out.

"I really thought I had lost my vision and I was just wondering how I would continue if I lost any of my faculties," she says.

As we get talking a little more on the psychological and philosophical impact the experience had on her, particularly watching her crew member die, Nakhoul goes silent.

She admits that she would be lying if she said she didn't think about it. "Of course it had a huge impact. I thought about my relatives, who all warned me to stay away. Some of them weren't even told that I had gone, because they would worry."

As head of a bureau of a fast-developing and faster-changing Gulf, Nakhoul is perfectly happy with her position and enjoys the region's complexities.

"As part of an international organisation, we are free of the strain that local media may be under. Governments anywhere in the world complain if you're critical, but as long as it's objective I see no problem," she says, quickly praising the huge improvements in local reporting.

"It's much better than a few years ago in terms of freedom and it's good to see more and more commentators coming out," she says.

Today, she shows no signs of having been hit or wounded in the hotel bombing - neither physically nor her spirit. It's all intact.

"Of course there were fears in the past, each time I was in a dangerous situation, but there have been no regrets. And as for the future I'm absolutely certain that I'm done with wars," she says.