Exclusive: Hany Hathout speaks about his journey

CAIRO –20 July 2017: Egypt Today interviewed Hany Hathout, one of the finest sports TV presenters in Egypt, who works at the Egyptian TV Channel Extra News.

Egypt Today talked with Hathout about the start of his career in Sports Media, how his passion for sports made him excel in his career in a shorttime, his visit earlier this month to the Egyptian Parliament, and his future ambitions.

“I graduated in 2009 from Ain Shams University with a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism, and I got my first job in November 2009; after passing the trials done in the Egyptian Radio, I chose to be a presenter in the Youth and Sports Radio especially that I was interested in sports and so I worked at Fil goal directly after I graduated; they then trained me for six months to equip me with the experience needed before presenting live, and luckily after a short time I began to host the studio of the match day analysis for football games.

I also went to cover matches from the stadium inside Egypt and abroad like the matches of 2012 CAF Champions League final and the Club World Cup that was held in Morocco in 2013.”

Hathout then moved on to talk about how his passion for football played an important role in achieving a lot of things in his career in a very short time.

“My passion for sports in general and to constantly obtain new knowledge about different sports in Egypt and outside Egypt contributed to making me want to receive the information and share it with the audience, along with studying Mass Communication and Journalism, which helped me a lot in displaying the news to the people in a catchy and unique way, which would make them interested and want to listen.”

Hathout then moved to talk about the difference between those who present with a degree in Mass Communication and those who present without receiving a degree.

“With all due respect to all those who are TV presenters, of course talent is very important because you could study Mass Communication but if you don’t have the talent, you will not be able to become a TV presenter.

However, studying Mass Communication is very important because it will equip you with all the skills needed to present; for example, it will inform you with the different ways in which you could present and how you could present the information, and these are the things you need to study in order to be professional; something that talent alone won’t help you attain, however, there could be people who can overcome this issue.

But I still believe that studying is very important to enhance the way you present.”

Hathout then talked about his visit to the Egyptian Parliament saying, “I was one of the young TV Sports Presenters who went to the Egyptian Parliament in order to discuss a part of the new Sports Law; this sector was about the new procedure that will be followed by the clubs in the upcoming elections.

Some clubs accepted the procedures and others didn’t so they made a discussion in the Egyptian Parliament in the presence of all those who are concerned about the law; things went well in this discussion, however, the only difficulty was due to being short on time, so they didn’t really listen to most of the opinions of the young TV presenters, and they had to take from our time in order to make sure that the discussion doesn’t take long; still it was a great experience and it is a positive step that shows that the MPs were keen to know our opinion.”

Hathout then addressed his future plans saying, “Currently I am at Extra News and it is a very important step in my career; it is something new to me, because now I have a daily sports TV Show that I present.

The difficult thing about it is that I present a sports show on a channel that focuses mainly on presenting news announcements; regarding the next step, I believe that it could be either in a sports channel or to work at a channel outside of Egypt.

I am not in a hurry though, because I believe that in Extra News I have a great opportunity to keep on developing, as the channel is giving me space to enhance the show and my skills.”

Egypt Today will soon post the other part of the interview where Hany Hathout says his opinion on the Egyptian Sports Media along with addressing some elements he wants to take from Europe’s advanced Sports Media and implement here in Egypt.