Known by his eloquence and fluency, Bassam Barrak talks with lots of passion about the intricacies, beauty, and possibilities of the Arabic language. He is one of the few who translated their talent and passion for the mother tongue into a successful story in the field of media.
His pedagogues couldn’t but notice his real uniqueness among other peers especially when it came to his elocution. He gained their support in addition to the unlimited encouragement, which he enjoyed since ever, by his whole family and specifically from one of his uncles who tutored him throughout all his career.
Delivering speeches in front of large crowds shed the light publicly on his refined skills and tactful performances. It all started on Sundays at the Church, where Barrak used to save by heart the epistles and read them loudly free from mistakes and looking highly confident. He was deeply influenced by renowned media figures such as Arafat Hijazi, Georges Ghanem, Nawfal Daw, Elie Salibi and Jack Wakim and tried to act like they do on TVs. After that, he served as master of ceremony at different occasions and events, where he shone more and more, and his future path became clearer to all who knew him.
While he was enrolled in the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Arabic Language and Literature, he started working at Voice of Lebanon radio station (Sawt Loubnan), where he also excelled in broadcasting the news with a very correct mother language. After his graduation, he started teaching in schools at the age of 21, until he became a coordinator for the Arabic language and a high school teacher.
A news broadcaster he wanted to be, a news broadcaster he became. From 1997 to 2008, the Lebanese Broadcasting Channel International (LBCI) was his platform, where he went live for news broadcasting and coverage, and conducted the six-day live coverage for Pope John Paul II mourning in 2005. He moved afterwards to Future TV and hosted his own show in addition to the news broadcasting.
Barrak readings’ vary from novels to history and politics. His bibliography includes writings of Gebran Khalil Gebran, Mikael Naimi, Toufik Youssef Awad, Maroun Abboud, in addition to Charles Malek, Mahmoud Darwish, Ounsi El Hajj, Mohammad El Maghout, etc.
Bassam Barrak imposed himself as one of the most brilliant in the media centers, uniquely known by his articulacy in our mother tongue, the Arabic language.
