Welcome to Ramblings of a Burned Out Journalist

Warning: This post contains mentions of journalist burnout, a (slightly bad) T-rex metaphor, and mangoes.

Walking in Cape Point, South Africa, 2022.

I’ve been a journalist for a decade or so: seven years if you count only my “paid” work as a reporter or correspondent for The New York Times, The Guardian, Al Jazeera English and NBC News. 

Burnout is an occupational hazard of working in a newsroom. But writing and stories have forever been a sanctuary for me: a clarifying and cathartic process of making sense of the world. 

Born to a working-class single-mother, a Bradford lass, who raised my three siblings and I in west and south-west London until she relocated our little family to west Bradford when I was 15, I’ve lived the hardships of living on little, and experienced first-hand the terror of tumbling down the rabbit hole of unemployment.

My escape from that reality was stories.

Kid me, circa 1995/1996.

Before Harry Potter, there was Sheila McKullough’s Tim and the Hidden People series, about a boy called Tim, a mysterious cat, and an invisible magical community and witches. Philip Ridley’s Scribbleboy and Kasper in the Glitter transported me to the corrugated iron-laden and concrete jungle of east London where I never traveled to until my twenties. 

My hope in starting this newsletter is that it will become another creative outlet.

I also hope that I can connect with you, my readers, and build a meaningful community beyond likes, retweets, and the demise of Twitter... 

Here’s what you can expect from me in the coming weeks:

Cultural, social, political, and culinary snapshots on absolutely anything and everything (although knowing how impulsive I am, this list will probably grow):

1. Food: Where is the best knaffeh, a cheesy, sweet middle eastern dessert? Which nation produces the world’s greatest mangoes? (Pakistani is greatest, let’s be honest…)

2. Culture: This will range from film, me waxing poetic about Toni Collette’s performance in The Sixth Sense, to theatre productions I’ve watched, not forgetting music, like the the Gambian kora master, Sona Jobarteh; and the ethereal Orchestral Qawalli project, by Abi Sampa and Rushil Ranjan.

3. Class, race, gender, and journalism. How the hell did someone like me, a working-class, daughter of a single mum, get a fellowship at The New York Times? And how did I survive freelancing for years? (Here’s a clue: interest free overdraft!)

4. Hiking in Britain: I’m always hiking alone in scenic spots around the country. On these posts, you can find me writing in a narrative voice that might sound something like J. R. R. Tolkien and David Attenborough combined. (WARNING: I sound like a sleepy Dumbledore in the recording.)

5. Solo travel. I know so many women - especially women of colour and visibly Muslim women - are afraid to travel solo. I would love to share what I have seen, learned, and the incredible people I have met on my solo travels to South Africa, the occupied Palestinian West Bank, Jamaica, Kenya, Oman, the USA, and beyond.   

Thank you for coming with me on this Substack journey.

Please subscribe and come back next Saturday for my second post on class, race, and how they intersected with how I broke (or more accurately clawed) my way into journalism. 

Aina

p.s. If there’s something you would like me to write more about, why don’t you leave a comment below?