Deena Adel Eid

Their Fulbright story

Deena Adel Eid is a journalist who has written for Al Masry al Youm and Egypt Independent in Cairo. As a 2013–2014 Visiting Fulbright Student at Columbia University in New York, she traded her newsroom in Egypt for one of the most demanding journalism programs in the United States — and, along the way, lived a day she still describes as one of the most surreal of her life.

That day was the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Her name was called and she walked on stage before a crowd that included Robert De Niro, Zooey Deschanel, and Barbara Walters. She was hugged by First Lady Michelle Obama, shook hands with President Barack Obama — who told her he was "very proud" of her — and traded a joke with comedian Joel McHale before walking back to her seat past a smiling Kristen Bell.

"Breathe. Take it all in," CBS News's Major Garrett told her as he firmly shook her hand. Only a year earlier, she had been in her room in Cairo, watching YouTube clips of the very same dinner and dreaming, half-seriously, of attending it one day. The Fulbright grant was what closed the distance between the screen and the stage.

Behind the glamour was the work that earned the invitation: rigorous reporting and the kind of cross-cultural perspective Fulbright is designed to nurture. Eid carried that experience back into Egyptian journalism, where she continues to report and write.

A year ago I was watching the Correspondents' Dinner on YouTube in my room in Cairo, dreaming of attending one day. Fulbright is what turned that screen into a stage — and reminded me to breathe and take it all in.