AUD Students Visit Bloomberg News to Learn About Business Journalism
The American University in Dubai organized a trip this month for its journalism students to the Bloomberg News office at the DIFC to enhance their knowledge about business journalism and further prepare them for a career in the media industry.
Nearly 30 students were welcomed by the Bloomberg Bureau Chief for the Gulf region, Claudia Maedler, who gave them some background information about the financial news agency, founded in 1981 in New York City by Michael Bloomberg and Matthew Winkler. Its headquarter are in New York, with 176 branches and 19,000 employees around the world. In the Middle East, the regional headquarters is in Dubai with offices in Cairo, Riyadh, Doha and Beirut.
Maedler informed the students about the various platforms of Bloomberg, such as Bloomberg Television, Radio, Podcast, and the magazine Businessweek, which is written in both English and Arabic. She advised the journalism students on balance, neutrality, distance, and seeking truth when writing and transmitting news.
One of the visiting MBRSC students asked Maedler about the sourcing of Bloomberg’s news.
“We have several sources, some companies give us the information, or we send reporters to find this information,” Maedler said. “The most important thing is to keep readers up-to-date with the latest news, which is why we sometimes get out information from other news agencies.”
Another student was curious about the impact on Bloomberg of the crisis that is facing the print journalism.
“It’s difficult to know the fate of print, but our readers are the ones who control the way we deliver the news,” said Maedler. ”We have many platforms to keep up with the continuous development and satisfy our clients, and more importantly, we are not only a news agency, but a global platform for financial information.”
A former intern at Bloomberg who got a full-time job with the news outlet took the floor to say that Bloomberg’s doors were open for the curious and hard-working ones.
Noor Al Ali graduated in 2015 from the American University of Sharjah with a degree from the English Language and Literature department. “I got an internship at Bloomberg despite my lack of knowledge of business,” she said, “but my desire to learn and explore everything new made the difference. This is my fourth year as a full-time employee and I continue to learn new things every day, which has increased my interest and my love for my job.”
She hoped her career at Bloomberg would motivate all AUD students to continue and love learning.
The visit concluded with a tour around the office, in which the students saw how the different departments work, and met Greg Tanner, a producer for Bloomberg Television. The Financial News Channel is broadcast from Dubai, London, the United States and Hong Kong.
Translated from Arabic by Sammar Khader
