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Dire Economy Prompts Lebanese Journalists to Find Jobs Abroad

Giselle Khoury. (Reuters)
Giselle Khoury. (Reuters)
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Dire Economy Prompts Lebanese Journalists to Find Jobs Abroad

Giselle Khoury. (Reuters)
Giselle Khoury. (Reuters)

Lebanese people often get preoccupied with news of prominent local journalists moving from one media institution to another. They often seek out the reasons from such a move, which usually makes headlines in the small country.

Now, as the country endures a crippling economic crisis, such job changes rarely make a blip on people’s radars. The latest trend, however, is seeing prominent journalists, whether news anchors, reporters or analysts, move abroad for better job opportunities.

They include Giselle Khoury, Rima Maktabi and Antoine Aoun to name a few. Others who have made the move from a rival local station to another include Marcel Ghanem, whose shift to MTV after 25 years at LBCI created shockwaves in the country. The same goes to Carla Haddad, who moved from MTV to LBCI, and Joe Maalouf, who made the move to MTV from LBCI. Other notable names that made such transitions are Tony Khalife, Neshan Der Haroutiounian, Dima Sadek, Maguy Farah and more.

Giselle Khoury recently joined Sky News Arabic, leaving her position at BBC Arabic. Nadim Koteich, who worked for years for Lebanon’s Future TV, recently made a move to Sky News Arabic as well.

Khoury began her career at LBCI before shifting to Al Arabiya television where she hosted two programs. She then moved to BBC Arabic before landing her new job at Sky News Arabic, which is based in the United Arabic Emirates.

“My choices have always been based on looking for new experiences to gain,” she told Asharq Al-Awsat. “At Al Arabiya, I learned about Arab media. At BBC Arabic, I learned about international media even though it is an Arabic-speaking channel.”

“A journalist with a lot of experience and a long history of work becomes an institution himself,” she remarked.

At Sky News Arabic, she said she was looking forward to entering the digital world and resuming political programs. She said her new job offers her a complete experience whereby she will appear on the television screen, while also communication through social media and other platforms.

“My move from one outlet to another is not linked to a lucrative salary, but rather the quality of the experience that I will gain,” Khoury said.

LBCI CEO Pierre El Daher said that it was natural for journalists today to seek new opportunities in wake of the severe economic crisis in Lebanon.

“We are now welcoming journalists’ departure given the dire situation in the country,” he told Asharq Al-Awsat. “There is not a single media institution in Lebanon that is not suffering from financial problems that are pushing employees to seek better opportunities.”

“I believe that material gain is behind any journalist’s move from one station to another,” he added. “This covers all fields of work.”

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Iran Faces Tough Choices in Deciding How to Respond to Israeli Strikes

This satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows damaged buildings at Iran's Khojir military base outside of Tehran, Iran, Oct. 8, 2024. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
This satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows damaged buildings at Iran's Khojir military base outside of Tehran, Iran, Oct. 8, 2024. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
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Iran Faces Tough Choices in Deciding How to Respond to Israeli Strikes

This satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows damaged buildings at Iran's Khojir military base outside of Tehran, Iran, Oct. 8, 2024. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
This satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows damaged buildings at Iran's Khojir military base outside of Tehran, Iran, Oct. 8, 2024. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)

It's Iran's move now.
How Iran chooses to respond to the unusually public Israeli aerial assault on its homeland could determine whether the region spirals further toward all-out war or holds steady at an already devastating and destabilizing level of violence.
In the coldly calculating realm of Middle East geopolitics, a strike of the magnitude that Israel delivered Saturday would typically be met with a forceful response. A likely option would be another round of the ballistic missile barrages that Iran has already launched twice this year, The Associated Press said.
Retaliating militarily would allow Iran's clerical leadership to show strength not only to its own citizens but also to Hamas in Gaza and Lebanon's Hezbollah, the militant groups battling Israel that are the vanguard of Tehran's so-called Axis of Resistance.
It is too soon to say whether Iran's leadership will follow that path.
Tehran may decide against forcefully retaliating directly for now, not least because doing so might reveal its weaknesses and invite a more potent Israeli response, analysts say.
“Iran will play down the impact of the strikes, which are in fact quite serious,” said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the London-based think tank Chatham House.
She said Iran is “boxed in" by military and economic constraints, and the uncertainty caused by the US election and its impact on American policy in the region.
Even while the Mideast wars rage, Iran's reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian has been signaling his nation wants a new nuclear deal with the US to ease crushing international sanctions.
A carefully worded statement from Iran’s military Saturday night appeared to offer some wiggle room for Iran to back away from further escalation. It suggested that a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon was more important than any retaliation against Israel.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Iran's ultimate decision-maker, was also measured in his first comments on the strike Sunday. He said the attack “should not be exaggerated nor downplayed,” and he stopped short of calling for an immediate military response.
Saturday's strikes targeted Iranian air defense missile batteries and missile production facilities, according to the Israeli military.
With that, Israel has exposed vulnerabilities in Iran’s air defenses and can now more easily step up its attacks, analysts say.
Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press indicate Israel's raid damaged facilities at the Parchin military base southeast of Tehran that experts previously linked to Iran's onetime nuclear weapons program and another base tied to its ballistic missile program.
Current nuclear sites were not struck, however. Rafael Mariano Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, confirmed that on X, saying “Iran’s nuclear facilities have not been impacted.”
Israel has been aggressively bringing the fight to the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah, killing its leader and targeting operatives in an audacious exploding pager attack.
“Any Iranian attempt to retaliate will have to contend with the fact that Hezbollah, its most important ally against Israel, has been significantly degraded and its conventional weapons systems have twice been largely repelled,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, who expects Iran to hold its fire for now.
That's true even if Israel held back, as appears to be the case. Some prominent figures in Israel, such as opposition leader Yair Lapid, are already saying the attacks didn't go far enough.
Regional experts suggested that Israel's relatively limited target list was intentionally calibrated to make it easier for Iran to back away from escalation.
As Yoel Guzansky, who formerly worked for Israel’s National Security Council and is now a researcher at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, put it: Israel's decision to focus on purely military targets allows Iran "to save face.”
Israel's target choices may also be a reflection at least in part of its capabilities. It is unlikely to be able to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities on its own and would require help from the United States, Guzansky said.
Besides, Israel still has leverage to go after higher-value targets should Iran retaliate — particularly now that nodes in its air defenses have been destroyed.
“You preserve for yourself all kinds of contingency plans,” Guzansky said.
Thomas Juneau, a University of Ottawa professor focused on Iran and the wider Middle East, wrote on X that the fact Iranian media initially downplayed the strikes suggests Tehran may want to avoid further escalation. Yet it's caught in a tough spot.
“If it retaliates, it risks an escalation in which its weakness means it loses more,” he wrote. “If it does not retaliate, it projects a signal of weakness.”
Vakil agreed that Iran's response was likely to be muted and that the strikes were designed to minimize the potential for escalation.
“Israel has yet again shown its military precision and capabilities are far superior to that of Iran,” she said.
One thing is certain: The Mideast is in uncharted territory.
For decades, leaders and strategists in the region have speculated about whether and how Israel might one day openly strike Iran, just as they wondered what direct attacks by Iran, rather than by its proxy militant groups, would look like.
Today, it's a reality. Yet the playbook on either side isn't clear, and may still be being written.
“There appears to be a major mismatch both in terms of the sword each side wields and the shield it can deploy,” Vaez said.
“While both sides have calibrated and calculated how quickly they climb the escalation ladder, they are in an entirely new territory now, where the new red lines are nebulous and the old ones have turned pink,” he said.