happy friday! here's a guide I wrote on how to attract young(ish) audiences for small(ish) legacy organizations, featuring case studies from a dozen journalism organizations:
I just saw 3 seconds of a Syrian boy, covered in blood & dust, crying out for his dead father. Immediate tears. It isn't normal to be witnessing this every day. It just isn't. 100 dead today. And as a manger of a newsroom, I still don't know how can I possibly make people care.
it's like watching a looping horror movie. I became a journalist because I believed in our duty & responsibility to show the world what's going on, and in that then affecting change. but what do you do when you believe coverage now contributes to the paralysis & desensitization?
I've assigned over a dozen stories for the parkland shooting. so many angles. sent a team down to Florida. And yet when it comes to 200 killed in 3 days, we're so used to it they become a meaningless number. a stat. one video. one tweet.
Exceptional moment in Kuwait.
During the call to prayer, an emotional muazzin now says: "Pray at your homes" instead of "Come to prayer".
This is a big for Muslims, as it only happens in exceptional circumstances.
It shows how serious authorities take
#covid19
threat.
@akhbar
thinking of egypt, of us 15 years ago, of tweetups and communities built, of revolts and revolutions, of what twitter meant to those or us who organized, reported and connected with the world - and each other - on here.
Think of people around the world tonight who need Twitter to get their voices heard, to document human rights abuses and injustices, to get attention, expose war crimes, and more.
All of them could be about to be cut off because the world’s richest man wanted to own the libs.
came to the US with two suitcases in 2013. no job, no family, no connections, no work visa. was told to intern. that no one would hire a hijabi egyptian immigrant. that I wouldn’t make it on my own.
two years later I was executive producer
@ajplus
. today I’m an editor
@WSJ
.
✨excited to share that I've joined the
@WSJ
as their Young Audiences Editor! I'll be working with the amazing
@louisestory
and
@laurentredding
to build a new digital magazine for an audience I'm just about still a part of. ✨
A beautiful story for all those celebrating Ramadan in quarantine this year. It may be different from past years, but it will also be the same in many special ways. May it be a time of introspection, purification, and forgiveness for us all. By
@aisaad
my father has already called me three times. he saw that video of a woman in hijab being punched in the head in Michigan.
I try and not let myself think how he feels me being 8,000 miles away on my own.
also, this sucks.
🚨 Personal News! 🚨
After five and a half wonderful years, it's finally time to say goodbye to my
@ajplus
family. It's been an honor and a joy to work with such incredibly passionate, smart and talented people.
It’s been one month since I started my new job at the
@WSJ
. It’s been challenging and exciting and intimidating in all the ways.
I got this email from someone who applied to my team. It meant a lot to me and I’m sure I’ll go back to it often.
for years & years I’ve been witnessing a world caving in on itself. sometimes physically counting bodies in a morgue but mostly watching children bleed & women scream from behind a far away screen: Yemen, Syria, Myanmar, South Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan. List goes on & on
step 7: find the one open duty free shop because family has asked for Toblerones. I’m not going to see my family for weeks, but sure, let me lug chocolates across the world.
so thrilled and honored to have made it onto the
@ONA
board! in what world could I have imagined when I published my first story in
@EgyptTodayMag
that I would end up here one day. 🙏
-The police in Egypt will get your parents. Does your father like his fingernails? They’ll take them out one by one
-Did you rape your daughter like Mohammed? Your prophet was a rapist
-You don’t speak English? That shows how ignorant you are
-The Koran? People use it as a toilet
This man wearing a green jacket was berating and harassing a halal cart vendor off 83rd and 2nd Ave in NYC. Does anyone know who this man is? Planning to report to the authorities.
Six months ago today, I joined
@WSJ
. Feels like I joined yesterday and that I've been here ages. Working hard on a new digital magazine that will be so very awesome. In the meantime, get to know my brilliant team!
Thrilled to welcome our first reporter to the team! J.J. has made Oprah cry, called Jeff Bezos a liar, and found all the business lessons from Queen Bey's Lemonade.
my brother just got engaged, and I was there for 2 minutes via FaceTime in the middle of my workday. on days like this, having left my country, home and family to live alone on the other side of the world seems like idiocy. too many feels.
Are you a woman writer of color working on a poetry, fiction or nonfiction book project? Here are 17 fully-funded scholarship opportunities. Apply!
(via
@kima_jones
)
And in the 5yrs I've been in the U.S., I’ve lost count of how many mass shootings I've covered. the daily bombardment of footage has numbed me. only so much empathy you can give before you're all drained out. hundreds of millions of views later I ask myself: have I really served?
today I went through elements in a producer's folder, looking for something different to what we've been showing for years.
I saw a little boy dead on a dirty floor, with his intestines in full view.
sad thing is: I've seen it dozens of times. I ate my lunch 10 mins later.
every morning, without fail, I listen to the pitches, and I assign the stories tens of thousands of people will see. I choose when we cover a story - or not. this airstrike? that cholera outbreak? having to balance between war and tech news, genocide and cute animals.
my sister gave birth last month. normal delivery, healthy baby, 2-night stay at the hospital. she just got her bills: $29,860.76 for her and baby. welcome to America.