{
  "id": 14902587,
  "title": "From Confident Speaker to Mic-Shy: A seasoned editor's journey of self-doubt",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/16/from-confident-speaker-to-mic-shy-a-seasoned-editors-journey-of-self",
  "topic": "world",
  "section": "World",
  "published": "2026-10-16T07:29:54.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Gulf News",
    "slug": "gulf-news",
    "url": "https://gulfnews.com/friday/from-confident-speaker-to-mic-shy-a-seasoned-editors-journey-of-self-doubt-1.500712794"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "A seasoned editor once spoke confidently in front of a large audience. She had trained since her school days to hold a microphone, organize thoughts and speak with conviction. Her finest moment came while playing an angel in a school production of Michael, requiring her to deliver a long monologue without forgetting a single word. But now, even though her command over the English language has improved, the sight of a microphone fills her with self-doubt. The irony is that she is now the one needing courage. She finds herself questioning her choices and wondering what went wrong. Perhaps younger people speak freely without fear of judgment, while the rest of us are haunted by embarrassing memories from the past. As we grow older, we become more conscious of how we appear to others and anticipate potential disasters. With each passing year, we become more demanding of ourselves and expect our spoken words to be as polished as our edited sentences. But she knows she has things worth saying and is working on overcoming her self-consciousness. Somewhere in her mind, the schoolgirl who performed Tolstoy without missing a word is probably laughing at her current predicament.",
  "summary": "I have reached an age where I can handle difficult people, impossible deadlines, unsolicited advice and most of life’s little disasters with reasonable composure. But, hand me a microphone and I begin questioning every choice that brought me to that particular moment, including my decision to leave the house. What makes this especially ridiculous is that I have spent much of my life being trained…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}