Absar Alam has been a print and electronic media journalist for 27 years. He has reported for national and international news originations including The Muslim, The Nation, The News, NYT, CNN, Tokyo Shimbun, Al-Ahram, on Afghanistan, terrorism, political economy, social issues, international relations, earthquake and floods. He was Nieman Fellow for a year of studies at Harvard in 2004-2005. Absar worked as newsroom leader with Islamabad Bureau of Geo News and Director News Dunya News. He also hosted a primetime current affair show with Aaj Tv for seven years. Absar worked as Country Head Open Society Foundation, a George Soros philanthropy organization, from 2009 to 2015. In 2015 he joined PEMRA as its Chairman for two years. His twitter handle is @AbsarAlamHaider
Adnan Aamir is a journalist, researcher, and trainer working in the field of journalism for almost 10 years. He works mainly as a freelance journalist covering Balochistan, International Affairs, regional geopolitics, and Belt and Road Initiative among others. His journalistic works have been published in Financial Times, Nikkei Asian Review, South China Morning Post, Asia Times, Business Standard, The News International, The Friday Times, Dawn among others. He has also written research reports for Lowy Institute, Jamestown Foundation, Center for Strategic and International Studies among others.
Aamir is also the founding editor of Balochistan Voices, a community-based online news outlet covering Balochistan. He has also received advanced training in data journalism and digital security. He also imparts training on Data Journalism, Mobile Journalism, digital security among others. Aamir was a Chevening South Asian Journalism Fellow in 2018 and a digital Security fellow of Reporters Without Border Germany in 2019.
Amber Rahim Shamsi is an award-winning multi-media journalist and free speech advocate, with wide-ranging experience in television, radio, online and the print media. She is also an International Visitor Leadership Programme (IVLP) and The Centre for Excellence in Journalism (ICFJ) fellow. She is currently head of communications at Tabadlab, a public policy think tank, consults with Media Matters for Democracy, a research and advocacy organisation working on freedom of expression, the media and the internet in Pakistan. She has also participated twice in the Jinnah Institute's India-Pakistan Track II Chaophraya Dialogue as an Emerging Leader. Ms. Shamsi has hosted three news and current affairs shows on mainstream news channels and writes opinion pieces for international media platforms. Previously she was a bilingual reporter for the BBC World Service, television anchor, desk editor, and producer. Her reporting largely focused on human rights. She has also written research reports and training manuals on women in the media, gender and conflict reporting, as well as conducted numerous media trainings.
Ali Airaj Ahsan is the co-founder & CEO of MangoBaaz, an online media company in Pakistan. Originally from Lahore, Ali holds a Bachelor's of Science in Industrial Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before starting MangoBaaz, he was working in San Francisco at a startup called Okta which went public in 2017.
Aoun Abbas Sahi is Islamabad based award-winning journalist, researcher, media trainer and development communication specialist having a vast experience of working with local and international media as well as development sector organizations.
In 2016, Sahi shared The Los Angeles Times' Pulitzer Prize for breaking news. He won International Labour Organization (ILO) Pakistan's "Excellence in Labour Journalism Award" for two consecutive years in 2013 and 2014. A Daniel Pear/AFPF fellow, Aoun worked as a reporter with The Wall Street Journal's Atlanta bureau, for five months in 2010.
In addition to training journalists, Sahi had been teaching at the country's top universities. Sahi has worked with several global media houses and publications that include: The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Telegraph (UK), The Sunday Times, The Times of London, Time Magazine, The Australian, Agence France-Presse (AFP), Inter Press Service (IPS), Sky TV, ITV news and NRK TV.
He is currently associated The Los Angeles Times, one of the largest American newspapers, and The Times, UK as special correspondent. He also contributes to The News on Sunday (TNS) weekly magazine of The News International.
Asad Faruqi is an Emmy Award-nominated cinematographer, photographer and filmmaker based out of Karachi, Pakistan. Over the past eight years he has filmed a number of films, including 2016's Academy Award-winning documentary short, " A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness" and 2011's Academy- and Emmy Award-winning documentary, "Saving Face".
At present, Faruqi is producing/directing "Indispensable", a film that follows two bomb disposal squad members of the KPK Bomb Disposal Unit to the front lines of the war in Pakistan. Some of his other notable works include Emmy and Alfred I DuPont Award-winning "Pakistan's Taliban Generation" and "Transgender: Pakistan's Open Secret". His work has featured on HBO, The New York Times, PBS, Channel 4, CBC, SBS, and Arte among others.
Asim Bashir Khan is a PhD scholar in the Department of Economics and Finance at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi. Khan is a young economist and has served the Government of Sindh on energy, investment, trade, public policy, and reforms. In journalism, his primary area is data journalism and he writes for national and international media. He has been master trainer for programs based on data journalism at the Centre for Excellence in Journalism, IBA, and the Pakistan Press Foundation.
He has been continuously writing on federalism and fiscal reforms in Pakistan. His area of research and publications include public finance, federalism, trade, political economy, agriculture, poverty, inequality and social reforms. To his prominent authorship are 'The Price of Nonconventional Security" published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC, USA-2016 and "Fiscal Federalism in Pakistan: Emerging Dynamics, Issues and Prospects" published in Issues in Pakistan's Economy: A Political Economy Perspective, Oxford University Press, Karachi-2015.
Ayaz khan is a multimedia trainer, researcher, and technology specialist. since 2016, Ayaz has led the development of mobile journalism (mojo) in Pakistan to harness the potential of smartphones for content creation and storytelling.
Ayaz has conducted trainings with national and international journalists, media professionals, activists and students. He has worked with Express News, CEJ IBA, Global Neighborhood for Media Innovation (G.N.M.I), Society of International Education (S.I.E), different media organization & institutes and has trained hundreds of journalists, passionate filmmakers, content creators & storytellers.
A multiple international award-winning journalist is the Director of the South and Central Asia Division at the Voice of America (VOA). She is one of a few foreign correspondents who have traveled to areas under the control and influence of the Islamic State militant group while it was at the peak of its power in eastern Afghanistan in 2015. Her reporting that brought to light tales of harrowing cruelty and suffering earned her the David Burke award for Courage in Journalism.
Ayesha has lived and worked on three continents — Asia, Europe, and North America —for various media outlets including the BBC. She has covered a broad variety of subjects, like the U.S. presidential elections, terrorism, conflicts in the Middle East, the Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S., the Syrian refugee/migrant crisis in Europe, and the aftermath of terrorist attacks in France. She was also on the streets of the city the day Taliban took over capital Kabul, reporting on how the atmosphere changed right before her eyes as panic gripped the population.
She has also been the host of multiple TV shows and special television transmissions. Two of her weekly shows, “On the Line” and “Access Point with Ayesha Tanzeem" tackled burning issues of international importance.
Aamer Ahmed Khan is one of Pakistan's most seasoned journalists. He was mostly recently working at Aaj Television as their News Director after returning from London, where he served as an editor for BBC World Service's West and Central Asia Hub and was also the Head of BBC Urdu. Before joining the BBC, Mr. Khan served as the Editor of Herald, Pakistan's premier news magazine and was a member of the team that launched The Friday Times. He has been a trainer with CEJ on 'Reporting on Delimitation' workshops conducted in multiple cities in February and March 2018.
Ed Lane is the senior editor for FiercePharmaAsia based in Singapore, covering the broad biopharma industry in Asia. He has previously worked as a senior correspondent in Southeast and South Asia. He holds an M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University and a B.A. in Geography from Wayne State University.
Eva Constantaras is an investigative data journalist specialized in establishing data units in mainstream media in developing countries. She has reported from Latin America, East Africa, the Middle East and Asia on topics ranging from human rights and organized crime to reproductive rights and food security. Her data units operate in Kenya, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central America. As a Google Data Journalism Scholar and a Fulbright Fellow, she developed her first courses for investigative and data journalism in high-risk environments.
Faisal Sayani is a freelance journalist, independent filmmaker and producer most recently with Dawn News. Sayani has also conducted training sessions with Express News and Geo News. His career has also included serving as the Creative Director of Sydney School of Arts and Humanities in Sydney, Australia, and Head of Programming at Express News.
Farieha Aziz is a Karachi based journalist and a co- founder of civil liberties and digital rights advocacy group, Bolo Bhi
Ghulam Mustafa is supervising an IMS (international Media Support) initiated project regarding journalists Security and Safety in Karachi and allover Sindh. He is Journalist Safety and Security Hub Manger of Karachi Press Club.
Gibran Ashraf is a journalist based in Karachi. He holds degrees from Karachi University in Bachelor's of Arts in Communication with a focus on Economics and International Relations, and a Master's of Art in Communication, with a focus on Electronic Media. In the past decade, he has worked for The News International and The Express Tribune.
Apart from his career in print, Ashraf transitioned into the digital arena, where he works on multiple platforms and mediums, including mobile journalism. Ashraf participated in Pakistan's first digital boot camp, hosted by CEJ in May of 2015. He is a member of Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, Karachi Union of Journalists, and Hack/Hackers Pakistan.
Kamal Siddiqi is the director of the Centre for Excellence in Journalism. Siddiqi joined CEJ after he resigned from The Express Tribune, where he served as editor for more than six years, supervising four print editions and the online edition.
Before joining The Express Tribune, Siddiqi worked as an editor at The News for four years. He has also worked at Dawn, Dow Jones News Wires and Asia Times in various editorial positions. In addition, Siddiqi has taught at the University of Karachi, and Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of The Internet Journalist and editor of Journos on Journalism.
Siddiqi earned a Master's degree in Mass Communication from the University of Karachi and another Master's in Media Studies from the London School of Economics.
Khurram Husain is a leading business and economy journalist in Pakistan. He is an Assistant Editor at Dawn newspaper, and writes one of Pakistan's most widely read business and economy columns. He was Pakistan Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC in 2013-2014, where he carried out archival research on the history of Pakistan's relationship with the IMF. He is an invited contributor by Routledge for their handbook on Pakistan (forthcoming), and is working on a book on the history of Pak-IMF relations. He also has television experience, where he made documentaries, anchored discussions on economic affairs, put together day-long special transmissions as well as managed the daily news flow. He has worked with the BBC, Express News, and Dawn News. His work has appeared on CNN, BBC, and Emerging Markets, among others.
Mahim Maher is a journalist based in Karachi. She was most recently the editor for digital at SAMAA TV after an 18-year career in print. She has a Postgraduate Diploma in Arts from the University of Melbourne, Australia; she studied Creative Writing at Concordia University, Montreal, and has a B.A. in Modern Languages (Russian and German) and Mathematics from McGill University, Canada. She is a Daniel Pearl and a Jefferson fellow. Maher served as metropolitan editor for The Express Tribune and Daily Times, news editor at The Friday Times and in various capacities at Dawn and Herald. She writes on Karachi’s urban infrastructure with data and mapping. Her workshops range from subediting and writing to digital storytelling.
Mubashir Zaidi is an award-winning senior broadcast and multimedia journalist, news and communications manager and trainer with more than 22 years of experience working in top national and international organizations.
Zaidi is currently working as an Editor Investigations and host of program "Zara Hut Kay". His responsibilities include supervising a chain of special correspondents across Pakistan. Zaidi also looks after the content of current affairs programs on Dawn TV.
During his distinguished career, he has broken exclusive stories that have made international headlines. Major breakings include an exposé on an air force cadet's deaths due to ragging, military coup and corruption, Mukhtaran Mai rape coverage, lawyers' movement, Benazir Bhutto's assassination, and a sect-free mosque story that earned a Journalism for Peace award.
Munawar Mirza is an award-winning TV Journalist who has reported for the last three decades on major beats including political, economic, crises, and international affairs. His special field of interest is human angle stories that won him three National Awards in reporting. His stories, documentaries, and motivational songs have contributed significantly in creating awareness on issues such as environment, healthcare, literacy, community development, tolerance and youth. His work has involved covering TV news assignments in US, China, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Central, Middle, and West Asia and also reported for CNN World. He has held senior management and operational positions in PTV and as Director News in Private channels including News One, Indus TV New and Business Plus.
In addition to his professional journalism career, Mirza has an intensive and extensive experience of teaching and training in Media Studies. He has been the head of Media Studies at Bahria University Karachi and taught at Karachi University at BS and Master's level. As a media specialist, he conducts trainings for professionals such as PTV academy, Association of Pakistan.
He is a member of Television Journalists, Karachi Union of Journalists, and other professional bodies. His field of specialty is the use of modern technology for news reporting and productions.
Malik Arshad Aziz is the resident editor of Daily Jang Peshawar and is a regular contributor for The News and Geo News. In the past, he has been associated with Daily Mashriq and Daily Aaj in Peshawar. He has been a trainer with CEJ on 'Reporting on Delimitation' workshops conducted in multiple cities in February and March 2018.
Naween A. Mangi is a working financial journalist for more than 20 years. She began her career in 1995 and has since worked for several local and international news organizations in Pakistan and the US. Mangi worked as the Pakistan Bureau Chief for New York-based Bloomberg News, from 2006 till April 2015. She is currently a free-lance writer and runs a developmental organization.
In the past, Mangi has worked for The Friday Times, Herald Magazine, Dawn Newspaper, Asia Times, CNBC Asia, CNN, Businessweek Magazine and Forbes Magazine in New York. Mangi received a bachelor's degree in economics from the London School of Economics and a Master's degree in journalism from New York University, with a specialization in business and economic reporting. Prior to university, she attended the Karachi Grammar School.
She has reported extensively for the local and international media on Pakistan's rural economies, focusing in particular on poverty among desert people and farming communities in the province of Sindh.
Nefer Sehgal is a photographer born and raised in Karachi. She holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communication from Curry College in Milton, Massachusetts. She has years of experience as a photojournalist and her work has appeared in local as well as international publications.
Sehgal has been recognized as being one of the first female photojournalists in Pakistan to have covered everything from bomb blasts to red-carpet events while she worked at The Express Tribune.
Muhammad Rahamdil Khan is the Manager IT & Telecom Department at GEO TV Network in Peshawar. He is a trainer and Information Technology expert with more than 15 years' experience. He is a master trainer of Mobile Journalism (MoJo) and has trained more than 170 journalists associated with Geo News, including correspondents, cameramen, producers and editors across the country. This included educating journalists on different technologies, tools and gadgets, such as newsgathering software, shooting on smartphone, audio and video editing, uploading, Urdu typing, BGAN satellite video uploading, and live streaming from a smartphone to social media.
Khan is the first person to introduce mobile journalism in his organization. This includes designing a mobile studio, researching and implementing the MoJo kit for the social media and sports journalism teams and news journalists.
Shahzeb Jillani is a multimedia journalist with world’s leading broadcasters in senior editorial and managerial roles. He has a track record of producing compelling, high quality, original content for digital, TV and radio. Mr. Jillani has an extensive experience in covering elections, natural disasters, militancy and interviewing news makers while reporting from the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Brazil, Venezuela, Cuba and the Guantanamo Bay. He was associated as an editor and correspondent for BBC, as a Senior Executive Editor for Dunya News TV and was most recently working as a Senior Editor at DW News, Germany.
Najia Ashar is a broadcast journalist, media consultant and trainer with more than 15 years of experience in Pakistan. She is currently doing a news morning show "GNN Morning" on GNN TV. Have worked as an "Editor News Strategy and Planning" at Aaj News, hosted daily news show "News Hour With Najia" , Knight Fellow 2015 at Stanford, have worked as a senior anchor/producer at Geo News for 12 years. Hold a Master's degree in International Relations, Yahoo International Fellow 2014 and the East West Center Fellow 2013.
Owais Tohid is a leading Pakistani journalist/analyst with 27 years of work experience. He hosts current affairs program Crosscheck at PUBLIC TV. He has headed Pakistan's private channels, worked for Agence France Presse (AFP), BBC World Service, written for the Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor ( CS Monitor), published in the Guardian& Time Magazine besides leading publications in India and the gulf countries. He has covered conflicts in Pakistan's tribal belt, extensively travelled in Afghanistan pre and post 9/11, Sri Lanka and Israel. He has formed teams and trained hundreds of journalists working in the industry.
Jesse Hardman is a radio and print reporter based in Los Angeles. He is also the founder of the Listening Post Collective which supports the flow of key news and information in communities around the United States. Hardman has trained and collaborated with journalists in more than 20 countries, including places as diverse as Pakistan, Guatemala, South Africa, and Bosnia. Twitter: @jesseahardman
Craig Duff is an Emmy award-winning video journalist and documentary television director, producer and writer. He specializes in visual storytelling and explanatory journalism. In January 2012, Craig was named a professor of journalism at the Medill School at Northwestern University, where he continues to teach and now manages the specialization in video and broadcast journalism in the school's graduate program.
His video journalism and documentary work has appeared on several major news outlets, including CNN, NYTimes.com, TIME, NBCNews.com, AJ+, MSNBC, WSJ.com, and The Discovery Channel.
Prior to joining the faculty at Medill, he was the director of multimedia and chief video journalist for TIME, where he oversaw video and other multimedia projects for the magazine's digital platforms and TIME.com.
In the months before he joined TIME, Craig was a Ferris Professor of Journalism in residence at Princeton University, where he taught a seminar on multi-platform journalism. While at TIME, he created a course in multiplatform storytelling for graduate students at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. He also spent a year n Egypt as a Knight International Journalism Fellow at the Center for Electronic Journalism at the American University in Cairo. Prior to the fellowship and during his academic appointments, Craig worked with The New York Times as the paper first ventured into video journalism through the expanded use of video on nytimes.com. He began his career at CNN where he rose to the role as an executive producer of long-form programs.
At Medill, Professor Duff was also involved in the creation of the Centre for Excellence in Journalism at the Institute of Business Administration in Karachi.
His multiple-award-winning television work includes several documentaries produced with the New York Times, The Discovery Channel, the CBC and CNN.
Ghazi Salahuddin is a senior journalist who writes a weekly column for The News (English) and Jang (Urdu). Before he became the launch editor of The News in Karachi in February 1991, he served Dawn in a number of important positions, including as the News Editor. During the Martial Law of Gen Zia-ul-Haq, his column 'Karachi Diary' was a leading voice of dissent. He has also been associated with the electronic media and for some time was on the panel of PTV's 'Kasauti' quiz show. In recent years, he hosted a programme on books on Geo. In his youth, he wrote Urdu fiction that was well-received. Ghazi Salahuddin is also a social activist and human rights defender. He is a recipient of the President's Pride of Performance Award in journalism and was presented with the Bibliophile of the Year Award 2011 by the National Book Foundation.
Hina Ali is a film editor and director based in Brooklyn, New York. Hina's body of work reflects her personal journey as a modern Muslim woman and her passion for storytelling. Her films include the feature documentaries such as Emmy-nominated Among the Believers and Insha’Allah Democracy.
Hina's work can be seen on PBS, BBC, Vice, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Starz, and, Cheddar. In Pakistan, Hina worked for various media outlets including Dawn News, SOC Films, Aaj News, The Express Tribune, and The Nation. Hina’s articles have been cited in international media including the NPR. She is a Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow (2013) and Chevening South Asia Journalism Fellow (2017).
Sharjeel started his career in journalism and worked for two of the most widely read English language newspapers of the country, The News International, and Dawn. He learnt his ropes as a sub-editor on the foreign desks of both these publications, moving on to head a pool of political reporters at Dawn.
He has experience in the fields of media development and capacity building among journalists and communication professionals.Sharjeel’s first book of Urdu poetry “Kiyun” came out in 2008. His latest publication is a collection of Urdu satire essays titled “Rindana.” He regularly contributes op-eds to Dawn and writes for several web-based publications. Sharjeel also teaches International Political Economy, Social Policy, and Strategic Communication at public and private universities as a visiting faculty.
Sahar Habib Ghazi is a design thinking trainer, journalist, strategist, and community-builder. She has led trainings for the Centre for Excellence in Journalism at IBA, Digital Rights Foundation, International Red Cross Committee, Punjab Police, Punjab Prosecution and UNICEF. As a JSK Journalism Fellow at Stanford University in 2010-2011, Sahar studied design-thinking, leadership, innovation and entrepreneurship. Sahar ran digital news operations at Global Voices from 2012-2018, where she built systems and nurtured communities to produce reporting on 150 countries in 30 languages. Sahar has reported for The New York Times; produced for Geo TV and DawnNews TV, a channel she helped launch in 2007. She serves as a board member for Media Matters for Democracy. Sahar currently runs WorkPlay, a training and consulting company that leverages design thinking and improv to nurture innovation, inclusive collaboration, and agile leadership.
Touseef Ikram is working with Jang Media Group as an Associate Director of Digital Media. He is part of the core team responsible for the P&L of the multi-billion PKR digital portfolio, new initiatives, and digital transformation of all media brands & publications on web, mobile web, mobile apps, social platforms, and messaging services.
His work has received international recognition multiple times from Geo News PWA’s display in 2 consecutive Google I/Os to FB Messenger ChatBot Case Study by Facebook. From getting the South Asian Triple Helix Award in the Data Innovation category on a Gamified Tax Data Analytics of Pakistan project to becoming the sole winner from Pakistan in the first APAC News Innovation Challenge and securing a substantial grant by Google. He is also the founder of FactHero.es, an international media literacy initiative to restrict the spread of misinformation and disinformation. He has also created a news search application that helps journalists track interest-based news from over 300 news sources in real time.
He is very open about sharing knowledge and has developed multiple frameworks to help build the digital media capacity of organizations of all sizes and work areas.
Zofeen Ebrahim began her career as an editorial assistant at Women's Own, an English language women's magazine prior to joining Dawn as a feature writer.
Now working as a freelance journalist, Ebrahim has contributed to many national and international publications, including The Third Pole, Dawn.com, Inter Press Service, and The Guardian. She has extensive experience in research and reporting for NGO's, including a stint as the communications officer at the NGO Resource Center.
Ebrahim holds a Master's degree in journalism. She has received multiple national and international awards for her reporting on economic, development, and environmental issues throughout her distinguished career, including the Green Press Award, IPS Journalist Award, and the Global Media Award.
Zubeida Mustafa is an independent journalist who writes a fortnightly column for Dawn. She is the author of five books the most significant being The Tyranny of Language in Education: The Problem and its Solution (2015), her recently published memoir My DAWN Years: Exploring Social issues (2018) and The SIUT Story: Making the Impossible Possible (2013)
The CEJ recognised her "outstanding contribution and years of dedicated service to journalism in Pakistan" by presenting her with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017.