In December 2022, INMA and Google News Initiative (GNI) awarded their third annual Elevate Scholarship to 50 news media professionals from 31 countries. This series features these impressive media professionals who are shaping our industry.

As evergreen content specialist for Khaleej Times in the United Arab Emirates, Rida Abdul Jaleel is putting her experience to work writing about new and exciting topics for a general audience.

Before joining the company, which is part of Galadari Printing & Publishing LLC, she was a content specialist for several brands in India and the UAE. That experience, she said, paid off: “That is how I came to join Khaleej Times, the largest English daily in the UAE,” Jaleel said. In addition to her content writing, two of her short stories have been published in anthologies, and she also self-published a novel in 2016.

While her long-term goal is to provide research in varying aspects of literature, Jaleel also enjoys writing news-based content for the Web on a variety of relevant and interesting topics. For her, it’s all about being able to harness her writing skills and using them to empower and inform people.

Through the Elevate Scholarship programme, Jaleel would like to pick up new skills in digital marketing, social media marketing, and curating meaningful and entertaining interviews with public figures.

She believes everyone who works in the news industry has an additional responsibility to provide authentic representation and elevation of all subsections of the population, including the marginalised and traditionally “invisible” groups:

“By uncovering such unseen stories and voices and by shedding light on necessary developments that are otherwise not considered mainstream, I hope to do my part in contributing to the inclusiveness of the news media industry.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .