Despite the fact that her fans believe “the topic has already been covered to exhaustion” and that journalists in the Middle East are “a bunch of tabloid paparazzi“, Octavia Nasr sat down with the UAE’s Gulf News to discuss the Tweet that got her fired from CNN as well as what she plans for the future:

Speaking about the event that led to her forced resignation, the journalist said she always tries to do whatever she thinks best at the time.

“The past happened and I have to deal with it and move on. I was on holiday at the time I wrote about [death of the Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Hussain Fadlallah] on Twitter, but if I had been working, I would have written a blog about it and provided people with a link so that they could read it. What else is there left to say on the subject?”

I’m glad she also discussed one of the many sources of mistrust between the East and West:

“People are becoming more extreme and are closing [their minds] instead of opening up. Each group is becoming more secluded and more unable or unwilling to meet [others] half way. And we’re seeing this on all sides. It’s not just one way.

[…]

“The East has responded passively to some very strong terror attacks [on the West], when it needed to respond [aggressively], and that caused a lot of mistrust [on the part of the West]. The West thinks all Arabs are terrorists and that all Arabs support terrorism, and this comes from the [East’s] silence after major terrorist attacks,” she said, pointing out that by the time the Arab world condemned the attacks it was too late.

And finally, she laid out her plans for the future.

On the establishment of her own media consultancy company, Bridges Media Consultancy, Octavia explained that it advises media companies on how to have a strong online presence, in addition to focusing on the importance of having multi-functional journalists.

Despite Octavia’s insult to this very blog for recommending that she talk to the media about what happened at CNN, I’m happy to see that she did end up discussing the “Tweet heard around the world” and well-targeted the blame for East-West misconceptions.

Octavia Nasr: Too bad @LebanonNewsURS sank in the tabloid abyss! | Her response to my suggestion to speak to the media rather than "lying low"