For decades, Majida Abboud-Saab was a broadcasting stalwart on SBS Radio.
A founding volunteer when the broadcaster was established as an experiment in “ethnic broadcasting”, she later served as deputy station manager and executive producer of the Arabic Language section.
“It felt like it was my home,” Abboud-Saab told SBS Arabic News about working at the broadcaster during those groundbreaking early years.
“We had our finger on the pulse of communities, and we were able to reflect their needs, their aspirations, their problems, and their successes,” she said.
Abboud-Saab was a founding member of the Arab Council of Australia. A trusted voice within the community, she also broke major stories – with a notable series of reports in 2005 on efforts to free detained Australian engineer Douglas Wood from Iraq.
For her, the role of SBS was not just to entertain and inform non-English speakers and new migrants, but to actively strengthen the national psyche and democratic process.
“I think multicultural media is very important to be able to help people settle successfully, help people work through identity issues and help people be good citizens.”