Clarion India
RIYADH — A journalist from Saudi Arabia has created history by becoming the first woman to deliver an evening news bulletin on one of the state-owned TV channels on Thursday.
Weam Al Dakheel entered the history books when she appeared alongside anchor Omar Al Nashwan to become the first female in the history of state-owned Saudi TV Channel 1 to present the nightly 9:30 newscastm, reports Khaleej Times.
Traditionally, men have dominated hard newscasts in Saudi Arabia, while female presenters focused more on soft morning newscasts, women’s programmes, cooking shows and weather updates.
“Jumanah AlShami was the first women to present morning newscasts in 2016. Today history repeats itself as #WeamAlDakheel becomes the presenter of the main nightly newscast, setting a precedent in an historic first for Saudi TV 1,” Saudi TV said on its official Twitter channel.
This is BIG from #SaudiArabia| for the 1st time ever a #Saudi female newscaster is featured on #Saudi national tv @saudiatv– @WeamAlDakheel becomes the 1st #SaudiFemale to read the 21:30 main
night news on TV ! 💚🇸🇦 pic.twitter.com/MTC5b2I9Kg— حسن سجواني 🇦🇪 Hassan Sajwani (@HSajwanization) September 21, 2018
The empowerment of Saudi women is a key pillar of Saudi Vision 2030, spearheaded by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and a series of reforms initiated in the Kingdom were aimed at the empowerment of women and to diversify the kingdom’s economy away from oil and relax strict rules on gender restrictions.
Notable among these moves was a Royal Decree issued in September 2017 by King Salman bin Abdulaziz allowing women to drive as of June 24, 2018.
Vision 2030 also aims to increase the percentage of women in the workforce. The past year saw the entrance of some 600,000 Saudi women to the workforce, according to reports.
Weam Al Dakheel was previously a reporter for CNBC Arabia as well as presenting for the Bahrain-based Al-Arab News Channel.
Dakheel graduated in Journalism from Lebanese American University (LAU).
The milestone was widely celebrated across social media, with fans quick to congratulate the presenter.
