THE LIFE OF A FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT
11.3
111
READING
6
Why do you think people choose
to be foreign correspondents? What
qualities do you think you need to be a
foreign correspondent?
7
a
Identifying topics
Read the extracts
from an interview with Ramaas Dalmar, a
foreign correspondent. Fill the gaps with
these questions.
a
What was your best experience?
b
What advice do you have for those
starting out?
c
What was your first salary?
d
What was your first job?
e
How did you become interested
in journalism?
7
b
In which section (1–5) can you find
this information?
a
what qualities a foreign correspondent
needs to have
b
where Ramaas Dalmar was trained
c
why he decided to be a journalist
d
where he was born
e
when he first went to Sudan
f
how he was paid
g
an experience that showed him that
journalism was an important job
8
Find words and phrases in the
interview that mean the following.
1
persuade someone to do something for
you, or give you something (section 2)
2
Someone who is learning about a job
(section 2)
3
to choose one thing from many others
(section 3)
4
made me realise (section 3)
5
uncertain, worried (section 5)
6
the quality of being honest and having
high moral standards (section 5)
SPEAKING AND WRITING
9
Work with a partner. One of you
witnessed an important news event. Decide
together what the event was (e.g. the effect
of an earthquake or hurricane on a city).
Student A:
You are a reporter. Write five
questions about what Student B saw. Then
interview him/her.
Student B:
You are an eyewitness. Make
a few notes about what you saw. Then
answer A’s questions.
After the interview, write a short
summary of it. Use reported speech.
Anna said she had felt very frightened. I
asked her what had happened and she said
she had felt the building shaking and …
Ramaas Dalmar
Foreign correspondent, author and TV
news journalist, Ramaas Dalmar has
worked for many of the biggest news
organisations. He is currently the special
correspondent for Channel6 News.
1
I first became interested in journalism when I was still a
teenager. I wanted to travel around the world and I thought
that journalism would be a good way of doing that. Although I
was born in Somalia, my family live in many different countries
and I can speak three languages, so I feel comfortable in many
different cultures. In fact that mixture of culture and languages
has always been something that I’ve found fascinating.
2
I talked my way into a temporary job as a trainee at a local
radio station in Croydon, London. However, my first proper
job in journalism was as a stringer* for an international news
organisation. I was so excited that I flew out to Sudan with just
£600 in my pocket in the hope that I could sell a few stories and
earn a living. The news organisation said they would pay me for
articles if they were good enough, and that arrangement worked
well for a while. About a year later I came back to England and
they offered me a full-time job.
3
It’s difficult to pick out one in particular but there was a
moment when we were covering a war along with a lot of
other reporters. We were in a hospital and I was interviewing
one of the doctors. After we had finished the story and turned
off the cameras, he said that he felt like he knew me and that
he could trust me. When I asked him why he felt that way, he
said that some of the doctors and patients had been listening
to our reports about the war and he had translated them for
everyone else. That was when it struck me that we had a great
responsibility to get the story out to others who might be
listening.
4
As a stringer, I used to earn £50 for each story that I wrote and
£70 whenever I did an interview on the radio. Every month,
when the news organisation paid me, they’d send all the details
of how many stories I’d sent them. Of course, that would depend
on what was happening in Sudan at that time but it sometimes
it was difficult to get through that first year.
5
Don’t be hesitant or shy in any way. Think about the kind of
programmes that you like and admire, then find out about who
makes those programmes and write to them. You would be
surprised how many times you get a positive reply. Sometimes
you need to be brave but most of all you must be a good listener.
Integrity is very important, so you must always remember that
you need to get the story right if you want people to trust you.
And you must be able to tell the story in a way that people can
understand.
* A
stringer
is a person who regularly sends stories to a news
organisation but who is not employed by them.
