Hello everyone and welcome to my substack. A quick note before we begin.

For 25 years, I reported from the places that made headlines, and many that didn’t.

As a primetime anchor and field reporter at CNN and NBC News, I covered wars, revolutions, elections, and the quieter stories that rarely made the cut. I sat across from heads of state and spoke to people who had lost everything. Along the way, I was recognised with some of the industry’s top awards. What I always wanted, more than anything, was to give those stories the space and context they deserved.

This is that space.

Starting now, I’ll be posting once or twice a week, analysis, context, and reported pieces on the Middle East and global affairs. And videos you won’t find anywhere else, not on Instagram, not on any other platform. This is where I’ll be doing work I can’t do in a sixty-second clip or a breaking news hit.

If you’ve followed my work on television, social media, my monthly column in Vogue Arabia, or my writing elsewhere, you know I believe that understanding what’s happening in the world matters more than ever.

No algorithms deciding what you see. No thirty-second format. Just the kind of journalism I’ve spent a career doing, in a form that gives it room to breathe.

I’m so glad you’re here.

Hala