Goodbye Daily Mail
and here's to whatever comes next!
Hello everyone and welcome to my brand new substack, Off The Record With Iram! I’ve been wanting to set up this page for a very long time, so I’m glad that you’re here.
ABOUT ME
My name is Iram (NOT Imran!). Apparently my name means ‘garden in paradise’. There’s a historic Persian garden located in Shiraz, Iran, called Bagh-e Eram. My plan is to visit it one day, when Iran is free from the clutches of the mullahs.
From a very young age I knew I wanted to be a writer/reporter. Well, I did briefly want to become a police officer but that was a very short-lived dream (I hate running so how on earth would I chase after criminals?!). I didn’t always think being a reporter would be possible, so I thought I’d have to settle for a more stable, less exciting career and end up marrying a random bloke from my grandparents’ village in Kashmir. Thankfully, that didn’t happen.
After graduating from university and going on to do a diploma in journalism (and some awful, soul-destroying retail jobs in between), I finally got a job as a trainee reporter at my local paper, the Oldham Evening Chronicle, in Greater Manchester. Four years later, however, we were all made redundant when the paper went bust.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait long for another job. Less than two months later, I started work as a reporter for The Sunday Times. I moved to London (which had always been my dream) and I’ve been in the Big Smoke ever since. To this day, my vowels remain stubbornly flat!
After two years, I left News UK for The Daily Mail. I started out as a commissioning editor on the features desk, but I was itching to write again.
I got my first big writing break when the paper sent me to Bulgaria to… sleep with a teddy bear. I kid you not!
I flew in to Varna Airport in the middle of the night on Friday and had about four hours sleep before I had to get up, do a photoshoot and write the article. It was the most manic assignment ever and yet I managed to fire off a piece in just a few hours to get it in the following day’s paper. And I think I did a pretty good job; it was (almost) worth being the butt of my friends’ jokes for months afterwards.
After that I got to write about a variety of subjects. Some of them were quite serious, such as my investigation into Brazilian bum lifts in Turkey or a heart-breaking interview with the Israeli father of a girl murdered by Hamas in October.
Occasionally, I got outraged by certain events and said what was REALLY on my mind: when cinema bosses cancelled a movie that offended Muslim extremists, or the time the BBC did a ten-part series on ISIS-bride Shamima Begum.
But I’m not always so serious; I’ve been able to let my hair down and have some fun, like when I was filling in potholes (is orange my colour or what?) or interviewing the Muscles from Brussels, action-movie hero Jean Claude Van Damme! For the first time in my career I made a lot of people very jealous indeed — and the only time my mum admitted to people that I work for the Daily Mail!
One of my career highlights was going to Israel in March 2024, nearly six months on from the October 7 attack and the subsequent war in Gaza. I visited a kibbutz less than two miles from Gaza, interviewed displaced families who were living in hotels, and spoke to grieving relatives and friends of the Israeli hostages. I wanted to speak to Palestinians as well but unfortunately I didn’t get the clearance to visit the West Bank. Maybe next time…
WHAT’S NEXT
And then I was made redundant, along with dozens of other talented colleagues — something of an occupational hazard in print media, I’m afraid. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t anxious or nervous about my future. It’s never easy leaving a full-time job with a regular salary and great health benefits. At the same time, however, there’s a part of me that is excited to see what’s next. There are so many things I can do now, projects that I can take on, pieces that I can write that would normally get a ‘no’ in editorial conferences.
A lot of journalists have taken to writing on Substack — a place where they can write a newsletter and send it out to anyone who’s interested in their work. Apparently this gives you control over what you write (yay!) as well as being able to connect to your readers. So I thought to myself, why don’t I try this, what’s the worst that can happen?!
And I’m not just starting a newsletter, I’m starting a community. I’d like you to have some input and let me know what kind of things you’d like me to write about. I’m still trying to figure out exactly how the page will look and how often I will write. In terms of the subscription aspect, for now my content will be free. But if you have the capacity to support a paid subscription that would be amazing.
Enough of my rambling. Hit subscribe, share this page, and let’s see where this goes!