Gulf News celebrates 35th anniversary with giant cake cutting. The Gulf News staff celebrate 35 years as a news leader in the region and the most read newspaper in the United Arab Emirates, as Editor-at-Large Francis Matthew looks at how the process of news gathering has changed over the years. See more at: http://gulfnews.com/gntv
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00:00Today, Gulf News celebrated its 35th anniversary as a leading newspaper in the region.
00:13A massive cake-cutting ceremony marked the occasion as staff enjoyed the music and festivities,
00:19taking time to reflect on how her loyal readership has helped make Gulf News the most-read newspaper
00:26in the United Arab Emirates.
00:29After enjoying the cake and reminiscing with colleagues, it was back to the office to continue
00:34reporting the news – an office that has seen many changes over the years.
00:3935 years ago, when Gulf News launched, it was a small paper, one of two in the very
00:45much smaller UAE.
00:47It was entirely print-based, and we were talking to an audience which didn't have satellite
00:51TV, didn't have internet, and had no access to information other than us in the newspaper.
00:57In the 80s, when we gathered news, the news itself came in on the agency tickers.
01:02That means that we actually had paper printouts, and we read the paper and cut and pasted that
01:07paper printout.
01:08There was no internet, and there was no email.
01:11There was no satellite TV.
01:13So those paper documents is what made our news, and then we had to re-key it and put
01:19it onto our printing press.
01:21The readers were in the same situation.
01:23Something big was happening in the outside world.
01:25There was no radio or TV, so they would go to the hotels, and some of the bigger hotels,
01:31the Hilton, the Sheraton and the Hyatt on the other side, actually printed out the agency
01:37tickers and hung it up on their walls.
01:40That's how people got their news.
01:41Now we're a much bigger multimedia organisation.
01:45Our audience is much more demanding because it's got access to information at its fingertips,
01:50and it requires us to keep up with it.
01:52The key thread throughout all that, though, despite all those different channels of communication,
01:57is that we need to remember what the story is, what our readers want to know and what
02:00the story is.
02:01That's what's kept us going straight.
02:03And the Gulf News team will continue to strive for excellence, to bring you, the readers
02:08and viewers, the news that you need and want across all platforms.
02:14Gulf News thanks you all for a wonderful 35 years and many more to come.