14 journalists from four continents join us as Journalist Fellows in January 2022

This global cohort will spend time in Oxford in a programme designed to explore the key challenges facing journalism worldwide
4th January 2022

Fourteen journalists from thirteen countries as diverse as Colombia, Kenya, Palestine and Serbia are joining the Reuters Institute as Journalist Fellows in January 2022. Our incoming Journalist Fellows are editors, reporters and multimedia journalists who will take part in discussions about the industry and learn about the shared and different challenges they are facing as journalists, and how they might address them. They will learn from senior journalists from around the world through seminars and masterclasses, and they will engage with our cutting-edge research. They will also work on a project of importance to them and their profession, and present their work at the end of their time with us. 

You can read more about each of the Journalist Fellows and their work below. They will join five Journalist Fellows who are continuing at the Reuters Institute from last term: Emily Chan, Kirsi-Marja Takala, Mehraj Lone, Claudia Cruz, Gideon Sarpong.

Haya Abushkhaidem

Freelance reporter & producer
Palestine
Sponsor: Mona Megalli

Haya is a Palestinian freelance reporter and a producer with more than six years of professional experience working for well-known local and regional organisations and news outlets, such as Palestine News Network, 10Mojo, and Middle East Eye. She is a passionate media ambassador for the Palestinian cause and culture, helping to inform the world with facts about the inspiring stories of Palestinian youth, the daily lives of Palestinians under occupation, and Palestinian achievements locally and internationally. She is also considered a dynamic social media activist in Palestine and abroad, and works with the Palestinian movement to end violence against women, Bekaffi, among several other initiatives.

Project topic: How honour killing is covered in Palestinian media

More on Haya's work:

Luiz Fernando Boaventura Teixeira

Homepage Editor, O Estado de S. Paulo
Brazil
Sponsor: Google News Initiative

Luiz was editor of Bahia Notícias before moving to São Paulo, where he now he works as editor of the homepage of O Estado de S. Paulo (Estadão), the oldest and third-largest newspaper in Brazil. While at Estadão, he was also editor of the 30th Class of the Estado de Jornalismo Course, the newspaper's trainee programme, which resulted in the "Choque da Uva" podcast. The podcast presented scientific issues to a young audience in simple terms. At university, Luiz developed research on gatekeeping and newsworthiness criteria in news publishing. 

Project topic: How the lack of black people in leadership positions in Brazilians newsrooms shapes news

More on Luiz's work:


Niken Christianti

Video Journalist, Metro TV
Indonesia
Sponsor: Fondation Botnar

Niken is a video journalist from Indonesia who has worked for Metro TV for almost nine years. During her time there, she has documented the stories of children and villagers at the Timor Leste border, at the southernmost province of East Nusa Tenggara, at the Indonesia-Malaysia border, West Kalimantan, and in Central Sulawesi. In 2019 she travelled to Norway to create a documentary about social culture, infrastructure and education there in partnership with Innovation Norway. She's also covered contemporary issues in Australia as part of the Elizabeth O'Neill Journalism Award programme.

Project topic: Education failures in remote areas of Indonesia

More on Niken's work:


Guillermo Draper

Editor, Búsqueda
Uruguay
Sponsor: Thomson Reuters Foundation

Guillermo Draper was born in Montevideo in 1982. He has worked at the weekly newspaper Búsqueda since 2005, first as a reporter and then as political editor. In 2015 and 2016 he joined the Uruguayan team that worked on the international investigation known as the Panama Papers, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory reporting in 2017. His investigation into the misuse of corporate cards led to the resignation of Vice President Raúl Sendic, an unprecedented event in the history of Uruguay, which received an honourable mention in the 2017 Latin American Congress of Investigative Journalism. This investigation also received the National Press Prize of Uruguay 2017. Since 2018, he is the first Uruguayan member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. He is co-author of the 2017 book Marihuana Oficial: Crónica de un experimento uruguayo. The book was awarded the Bartolomé Hidalgo prize in 2018 in the category Testimonials, Memoirs and Biographies. He has a degree in Social Communication from the Catholic University of Uruguay, where he teaches journalism.

Project topic: Best practice business models for Uruguayan media

More on Guillermo's work:

Laura Dulce Romero

Reporter, El Espectador
Colombia
Sponsor: Anglo American

Laura is an editor and multimedia journalist from Bogotá. She has covered the armed conflict, transitional justice, human rights, reconciliation, gender and truth in Colombia. Most of her work has been published in El Espectador, the second largest daily national newspaper with 30 million unique users. For the past three years she has worked at Colombia 2020, a journalistic and pedagogical project that rigorously monitors the implementation of the Peace Accord signed between the Colombian government and the former FARC guerrillas in 2016. She studied a BA in Social Communication and Language with an emphasis on journalism at the Pontifical Javeriana University and an MSc in Sociology, Social Transformations and Innovation at the University of Barcelona (Spain).

Project topic: The effectiveness of solutions journalism in Colombia

More on Laura's work:

Morten Frich

Editor, Politiken
Denmark
Sponsor: JP/Politiken

Morten is a reporter and editor from Copenhagen. For more than a decade he was an investigative journalist, cofounding and leading one of the most succesful investigative teams in Denmark. Today he leads a team of reporters at leading Danish daily, Politiken. He has extensive knowledge of managing breaking news, investigative reporting and storytelling. He is the author of a bestseller on organised crime and has been awarded the highest prize in Danish journalism, Cavling.

Project topic: Encouraging a culture of feedback in newsrooms

More on Morten's work:

Paula Molina

Editor-in-Chief, Radio Host, TV Host, Radio Cooperativa Chile
Chile
Sponsor: Thomson Reuters Foundation

Paula is a Chilean journalist, Harvard Nieman Fellow, radio and TV host and book author. She's also the founder of innovative digital and legacy media projects, including the Chilean podcast platform, CooperativaPodcast. She brings over two decades of experience working in quality journalism and navigating a vastly changing media environment. Since 1999, she has been working as a live news host and editor at Cooperativa Radio, winner of the 2020 Gabo Award for Excellence in Journalism, and one of the most trusted Chilean media brands according to the Digital News Report. Paula has been honoured for her contribution to the empowerment of women and her coverage of poverty. She co-founded news chatbot LaBot, which received the Journalism Award for Digital Excellence UAH, one of her country's top journalism prizes. Molina hosts a weekly Chilean female-only political prime-time TV programme and has worked as a BBC News Mundo contributor since 2014.

Project topic: Can podcasting fill the role of radio in Chile?

More on Paula's work:

Maurice Oniang'o

Multimedia Journalist
Kenya
Sponsor: Thomson Reuters Foundation

Maurice Oniang'o is a versatile freelance Multimedia Journalist and Documentary Filmmaker based in Nairobi, Kenya. He has written for National Geographic, GIJN (Global Investigative Journalism Network), 100 Reporters, Africa.com, and Transparency International, among others. Maurice has also produced documentaries for highly-rated programmes such as National Geographic's Ultimate Vipers, Project Green, Africa Uncensored, NTV Wild, Giving Nature a Voice, and Tazama. His work has won many awards, including a gold Development Reporting Award TV, 2021– AJEA (Media Council of Kenya) and Spotlight Documentary Film Awards, 2020. He is also a National Geographic Explorer recipient, and a fellow of the inaugural National Geographic Field Ready Programme. He has a keen interest in social justice, human rights, corruption, conservation, natural history and wildlife.

Project topic: The impact of media coverage of police brutality in Nairobi's slums

More on Maurice's work:


Hanne Østli Jakobsen

Science journalist, Morgenbladet
Norway
Sponsor: Fritt Ord Foundation

Hanne is a science journalist and an assistant editor of current affairs at the weekly newspaper Morgenbladet in Oslo. She has a bachelor's degree in journalism and political science, and previously worked for Forskning.no, a science news site, and for VG Helg, the weekend magazine of Norway's largest daily newspaper. In 2017, she was the recipient of the Norwegian ViS Prize for Science Journalism and was a board member of the Norwegian Association for Science Journalists. She mainly covers health, technology and democratic backsliding, and has been leading Morgenbladet's pandemic coverage since March 2020.

Project topic: Covering long covid in Norwegian newsrooms

More on Hanne's work:


Priti Salian

Independent journalist
India
Sponsor: Thomson Reuters Foundation

Priti is an independent journalist who writes about the intersections of human rights, global health, development and culture, with a special focus on disability, gender and ageing. A solutions journalism enthusiast, Priti has reported from India, Germany and Uganda, and is currently based in Bengaluru. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, the BBC, National Geographic, The Christian Science Monitor, Devex, The British Medical Journal, Stanford Social Innovation Review, The National, Al Jazeera, Reasons to be Cheerful, and others. She is a TEDx speaker and a Robert Bosch Foundation's Media Ambassador Fellow 2019.

Project title: The under-representation of journalists with disabilities in newsrooms

More on Priti's work:


Milica Šarić

Editor-in-chief, Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia – CINS
Serbia
Sponsor: Thomson Reuters Foundation

Milica began working as an investigative journalist and fact-checker in 2012. In October 2018, she became editor-in-chief of the independent Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia (CINS). As editor, she has contributed to the production of 90 investigative stories and 2 databases. Milica won the EU award for best young investigative journalist in Serbia in 2017 and, with the CINS team, won the prestigious 2017 European Press Prize for investigative journalism for a series of articles on the failed fight against corruption in Serbia, as well as the WJP Anthony Lewis Prize for Exceptional Rule of Law Journalism, and Dusan Bogavac award for ethics and courage. She has investigated energy and environmental issues, botched privatisations, private security, the judiciary, and political party financing.

Under Milica's editorship, CINS was among finalists for the Global Editor Network's data journalism award, and the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards for courageous, high-impact and determined journalism that exposes censorship and threats to free expression. As fact-checker she worked with the OCCRP, and as an external associate she contributes to Poynter's IFCN.

Project topic: Audience engagement strategy for the Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia

More on Milica's work:

Shuprova Tasneem

Senior Editorial Assistant, The Daily Star
Bangladesh
Sponsor: Thomson Reuters Foundation

Shuprova Tasneem is a Bangladeshi journalist who has worked in the news industry since 2015. As Senior Editorial Assistant at The Daily Star, Bangladesh's leading English language newspaper, her responsibilities include content planning, clarifying the paper's stance on major national issues in daily editorials, and writing a regular opinion column. Her work focuses on gender justice, human rights and inequality, with a particular interest in postcolonial feminism. She has been working in the news industry since 2015.

Project topic: The representation of sexual violence in Bangladeshi media

More on Shuprova's work:

Robyn Vinter

Freelance news reporter
UK
Sponsor: Facebook Journalism Project

Robyn Vinter is an award-winning investigative journalist who writes for national newspapers in the UK, including The Observer, The Guardian, the i newspaper and the Sunday Mirror. She was formerly a reporter at the Yorkshire Post and previously ran The Overtake, an investigative news website for young people. She is based in Leeds, in the north of England.

Project topic: How to help people understand the benefits and consequences of speaking to reporters

More on Robyn's work:

Hiba Yazbek

Freelance Journalist
Palestine
Sponsor: Columbia University

Hiba Yazbek is a Palestinian freelance journalist with an M.S. degree from Columbia Journalism School. She is currently part of a team working with the New York Times on a forthcoming series of investigations and recently worked at the Times' Jerusalem bureau as a research and reporting assistant. Previously, Hiba worked at Haaretz.com in Tel Aviv as a news and features desk editor, where she started as an intern. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communications and English Literature from Tel Aviv University and is a 2021 recipient of the White House Correspondents' Association Fellowship, and a member of the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association. Hiba was born and raised in Nazareth and is fluent in Arabic, English, and Hebrew. 

Project topic: The impact of citizen Journalism in Palestine

More on Hiba's work:

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