Dubai: She is 24 years old and has been a Gulf News reader for 20 of those years. Safoora Masood, a Pakistani expatriate, talks fondly of the newspaper, as if it is a member of her family.
"I don't remember a day without Gulf News," she says.
"I remember being four and looking at the pictures in the paper while my mother read to me."
Safoora has lived in Dubai all her life and is one of the readers who has been part of the newspaper's journey.
"When I was 12 years old, we had a school cookery competition which was featured in Gulf News," Safoora says.
"I can still remember seeing my name and picture in the paper then, they looked so different," she recalls.
She has been a regular reader and has participated in countless contests and competitions run by the paper through the years.
"I have entered so many competitions and won many prizes and vouchers, which always made me smile," she says.
Until today, Safoora has framed copies of every paper that has featured her name or picture.
"When Junior News magazine was around, my father had to come up with a system where every weekend someone would read it first, to avoid fights between me and my siblings," she said, laughing at the memory.
As she grew older, Safoora became even more attached to Gulf News.
"For both my graduation from university, and my post graduation, my picture was published in the paper, and that meant so much to me," she says.
While the editorial content has helped Safoora, discover, learn and enjoy information, the newspaper has played an important part in her life in other ways, too.
"I got my first job through the Classifieds section," she said. "Now I am a teacher and I read different pieces of the paper to the children I teach every day."
The paper has been around for so long, that not only me, but every member of my family consider it the most credible source and whenever something is going on, the first place we would check would be Gulf News," she says. The highlight of Gulf News for Safoora these days is its reader interactivity.
She says: "Gulf News does more than just journalism. They don't just provide news and stop. Gulf News speaks to people and then listens to their responses."
