my bbc newsmaker story ammans emerging

My BBC Newsmaker Story: Amman's Emerging Music Scene

It was a Saturday night. I drove Rebecca back to her hotel after my

first recording attempt at Yazan's Rousan's gig, and she was telling

me "you just need to think of what the story boils down to, in one

line." I was stressed out and totally confused about how to bring my

story into focus and figure out how to say what I wanted to say in

FIVE MINUTES on radio! We only had four days to make this report...

and to make it brilliant for the world to hear on the BBC World

Service... "No pressure!" as Rebecca would say. "No pressure"... I

kept telling myself.

Rebecca was the BBC producer sent to Amman to work with Sarah Al-Badri

and myself on our Newsmaker stories. It was last March that a friend

on mine told me about this Newsmaker competition, then I started

seeing brochures all over town saying that two winners would get to

produce their stories and them broadcast on the World Service. It was

difficult to settle on an idea, but one amazing musician inspired me

to look at Amman's emerging cultural identity through music, and how

musicians here are taking in all these world influences and making

something that is "Ammani".

All throughout the summer, after the competition results came out, I

was getting an insider perspective on the music scene in Amman, and I

was going to many concerts and shows, and trying to decide who I

wanted to interview and what I wanted to include in the report. I was

lucky that Rebecca came to Amman between the 8th and 12th of

September, the time when the Prime Music Festival was taking place.

I went to record on the first night of the Festival, when Yazan

Roussan was performing. I had fun with that recording experience.

There was a touch of glamour to it, I must admit, walking through the

crowd with a BBC microphone and doing vox pops with young Ammani's on

what they think of the emerging music scene, and why they like Yazan's

music.

I managed to get a hold of Yazan for an interview after he finished

the sound check and before he went on stage. I was excited at the

answers he gave and kept thinking in my head what would fit in

perfectly in my report... but the thrill faded away when he finished

talking and left only for me to realize that the recorder was on PAUSE

the whole time!!!!

"Classic mistake..." I just had to do it again, and it didn't sound

the same at all!

My vox pops also didn't come out quite usable... the good ones had

extremely loud background music that would be impossible to edit.

Those were not problems to worry about though, we still had time to

record some more. My challenge was that something was missing. It

seemed as though there were many ideas that could be brought into my

story, and we needed to focus on one thing and try to bring it out to

listeners.

Y gave me the inspiration I needed, and I suddenly realized what my

mistake was; I kept telling Rebecca "Jordanian music" while in fact

what I meant was something very particular about Amman. I realized

that the center of my piece was my city, and the music played into

that, not the other way around.

I was excited again, and ready to go do more interviews and make the

most of that great opportunity.

Learning how radio journalism works was a brilliant experience; trying

to think in terms of what people hear, the different audio bits, the

way it is all mixed, what lines to choose, how to link it all

together... and how people hear more than we think they do...

Rebecca kept telling us "when you smile, people can hear it". She also

insisted on how everything needs to be authentic and real. The

insights into Journalism ethics were very valuable.

music scene for a week like a "rock star", talking to amazing young

musicians about what it is they're trying to do, and not being able to

hide my big grin when someone says the perfect line that I would

register in my head for the editing choices to follow. Talking to Sign

of Thyme during their rehearsal, talking to Ruba Saqr on her balcony

overlooking the hills of old Amman, and recording my introduction up

on the Citadel with a vast panoramic view of the city gave me so much

to ponder.

On the technical side, I learned to pay attention to details; the

background noise, the ways people say their sentences and how that

would work with editing, making sure the recorder is NOT ON PAUSE!

More importantly, I learned that it involves making a lot of tough

choices. It's funny how you get attached to your material, and can't

bear to discard any of the bits that sounded really good to you.

I could go on and on. As you can obviously tell, I haven't entirely

overcome my problem of knowing how to be focused in telling a story!

But I must add that this experience made me love journalism even more,

and made me appreciate radio in ways I didn't think I would. I think

the fact that my little story about Amman's cultural identity through

music will be aired for the world to hear hasn't quite sunk in yet, so

I don't know what to say about that. I felt so lucky though, to have

met the amazing Sarah and seen her story in the making, and to have

had an absolutely wonderful "slave driver" that was tons of fun to

work with, mentoring, motivating, and opening a window into a vast

world of professional journalism that I hope to delve deeper into.

Note: This post is a longer and slightly modified version of the

thoughts I shared on the BBC website. They edited it to make it

shorter and "more focused" :) but this is the joy of having a personal

blog!

Note II: The BBC website says that I work with a telecommunication

company; this was the case when I won the competition and up until