Latest news with #SaeedSaeed
The National
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The National
Who's profiting from AI-generated music?
About the piece by Saeed Saeed AI-generated band Velvet Sundown are a Spotify hit, but is the music any good? (July 2): The writer left out a key point. These AI bands aren't just about experimentation, they're a business model. Streaming models benefit when algorithm driven "safe" music fills up playlists, because it's cheap to make and easy to push. Meanwhile music of real artists gets buried. It's worth asking who actually profits when the human element gets stripped away. Hint: the platforms that host them. Karam Touba, Dubai Yes, AI can make amazing music, if the person or people giving it the prompts are any good. Margaret Reynolds, Muscat, Oman AI music has a parallel in AI-generated photography. Why do people need to generate an image of a person suffering rather than use the thousands of images taken by photojournalists in the field every single day. Those are real people risking their lives to bring us real information. These are machine generated and inauthentic. There really is no comparison. Brenda Davies, Hoi An, Vietnam The kidnapping of Alawite women must stop With regard to Nada Maucourant Atallah and Adla Massoud's report 'Get the money fast if you want her alive': Syria's Alawite women and girls disappear in abductions (July 1): These scenes are unbearably brutal. How can those who call themselves world leaders speak of humanity, yet offer offenders international protection and recognition? Norma L, Cincinnati, US Gaza ceasefire still too far in the distance In reference to Mohamad Ali Harisi's report Hamas reviews Gaza ceasefire proposal as Netanyahu vows 'it's over' for group (July 2): For the Hamas spokesperson Mahmoud Taha to say that US is not serious about ending the Gaza war is odd as it is not a US problem at all. I am concerned about the US economy, US debt and the size of the Pentagon. Frederice Klinge, Hamburg, Germany Hamas is clearly useless as a governing body. It doesn't care about Gaza at all and is perfectly alright with continuing the killings of their own people, with peace still too far away on the horizon. Ali Faisal, Inverness, Scotland Jamie Lucas, London, UK
The National
07-04-2025
- Health
- The National
Apply for a mental health journalism fellowship in the UAE
If you are a reporter, editor or content producer in the UAE, you can now apply for a 2025-2026 Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism. The programme provides a grant, training and mentorship for 12 months. Interested candidates have until May 20 to apply. The non-residential fellowship programme, which is run by the Carter Centre in the US and administered in the UAE by The National, seeks to develop a cohort of journalists who can improve the quality of mental health reporting. The programme is named after the late Rosalynn Carter, co-founder of the Carter Centre, who was an influential voice in the field of mental health for decades. The Carter Centre has awarded Rosalynn Carter fellowships to more than 280 journalists around the world since 1996. Up to two fellowships will be awarded in the UAE in the 2025-2026 recruitment cycle. The successful candidates will follow Saeed Saeed, who is the 10th journalist to be connected to the programme since The National began overseeing the award of UAE fellowships in 2018. His reporting project this year has focused on attitudes towards mental health in the Arabic music scene. Previous fellows have reported on a diverse range of topics, including the experiences of communities living with the threat of conflict and climate change, solutions-based pieces on ways to help build more resilient societies, insightful reporting on the experiences of expatriate workers living apart from their natural support networks, stories that have documented the societal pressures experienced by young people, how schools tackled the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic and the need for better support for people living with disabilities and for the forcibly displaced. The fellowship year, which runs from the start of September for 12 months, is bookended by annual meetings at the Carter Centre in the US city of Atlanta, where incoming fellows will discuss their intended reporting work with a global network of journalists and experts. Fellows will return to the same forum in September 2026. They will be supported by experts in the US and local advisers in the UAE throughout their time with the programme. Applicants for the 2025-2026 recruitment cycle must be a citizen or resident of the UAE, or demonstrate a strong connection to the country by freelance work. You should have experience as a reporter, editor or content producer. Applicants should submit a copy of their CV, together with a cover letter of no more than 500 words that provides an outline of the mental health reporting work the candidate would seek to do if awarded a Rosalynn Carter fellowship. The project proposal could be for a single reported piece, a podcast series, a collection of features, videos or any other form of publishable content. The applicant should outline where they hope to publish their work and in what format (ie, digital, print, broadcast, multimedia or social media). It is not a requirement of the scheme that the reporting project is published in or by The National. Any application should be supported by links to two samples of previously published work. In addition, the applicant should supply contact details for a suitable referee. That person is in all likelihood a senior editor, newsroom leader or publisher, and should be able to comment on the applicant's ability and potential as a journalist and, ideally, have a strong interest in publishing and supporting the applicant's fellowship proposal. Referees will only be contacted if a candidate is called for interview. Applicants should submit their CV, cover letter of 500 words or less, links to two samples of their work and contact details for their referee to: Nick March, Assistant Editor-in-Chief at The National and UAE Programme Administrator for the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism. Send your documents to nmarch@ Please mark the subject line of your email as 'Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism (UAE programme application 2025-26)". The closing date for applications is May 20, 2025. All applications will be reviewed by a panel of editors at The National and the local advisory board for the fellowship in the UAE. Shortlisted candidates will then be interviewed by the local advisory board and programme administrator. It is intended that interviews will be conducted in June 2025, either in-person in Abu Dhabi or via Zoom.
