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PAULA SLIER

PAULA SLIER

meet paula

leaving home

The world became my classroom long before it became my workplace. 

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" I have worked in cities under siege, cities stripped of certainty, and cities struggling to hold themselves together. "

- paula slier

For years I told people it had always been my dream to become a war correspondent.

 Then, one day, a school friend laughed and said, “You never once said that while we were growing up.” He was right. I realised my dream had never been to report on war. It was to become an international correspondent. Israel simply seemed like the place where that dream could begin.

At 31, I made one of the biggest decisions of my life.

 worked so harda former colleague of mine reading the news on CNN from Atlanta, I questioned everything.

 I left a secure job, ended a six-year relationship, packed two suitcases and moved to Israel. I had no close family there, knew almost no one and arrived with very little money. My first home was a tiny apartment I rented in Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market. Every morning I woke to traders shouting, chickens clucking and the market coming to life. I slept on a mattress on the floor, watched television from a single chair and wondered often if I’d made the biggest mistake of my life. When I saw Had I thrown away the career I’d  worked so

hard to build? Was I starting again for nothing? In many ways, I was.

I knocked on doors looking for work. One editor told me I wasn’t offering anything new. I was a South African journalist who spoke only English in a region filled with correspondents who spoke Hebrew, Arabic and other languages.

I had to start from the bottom again. Slowly, one assignment became another. I picked up freelance gigs, reported for South African radio and television, Reuters, Israeli broadcasters and international news organisations. Over time, I spent nearly two decades reporting from the Middle East and

eventually became RT’s Middle East Bureau Chief and international correspondent for South Africa’s eyewitness news.

Looking back, I realise careers are rarely straight lines. Sometimes, starting over is the only way to move forward. It’s the beginning of everything that comes next.