PH+SocialGood: Tacloban Journalism Forum

Shahira Amin is an independent Egyptian journalist based in Cairo. She was Deputy Head of state-owned Nile TV and a senior anchor but resigned her position during the January 2011 uprising in protest at the channel’s coverage of the Tahrir Square protests. Shahira was a longtime contributor to CNN’s Inside Africa from 2002 – 2011 filing stories from Egypt and other North African countries. She now contributes to Index on Censorship, a UK based free expression portal and the News Hub. She has won several international awards including Sweden’s Holmes of the Year Award 2011, Spain’s Julio Anguita Parrado Award 2012, the American University in Cairo’s Catalyst for Change Award 2011, the Global Thinkers Forum Award (Excellence in promoting gender equality) 2013.

Kelli is the founding Executive Director of the Global Center for Journalism and Democracy (GCJD). Additionally, Arena is the first recipient of the Dan Rather Chair of Journalism. Arena came to SHSU from Washington, D.C. where she was CNN’s Justice and Investigative Correspondent. She is a globally recognized, award-winning journalist with decades of experience in national and international newsrooms. Well known for her work at CNN, she is also an internationally renowned moderator, engaging some of the world’s most notable and creative thinkers.

As the first recipient of the Dan Rather Chair of Journalism, Arena was hired to bring national attention to SHSU’s journalism department. During her tenure, Arena has developed journalism courses and workshops, created a GCJD speaker series, and has overseen SHSU’s student-run news program Channel 7 News.

Bill has been the News Director of Hawaii Public Radio since February 2011, where he also writes and produces the daily feature “The Asia Minute.” He also writes the biweekly column “Asia Matters” for the online publication Honolulu Civil Beat. He previously worked at CNN for 21 years as a writer, producer, and reporter based at various points in Atlanta, New York, Washington DC and Tokyo. He later returned to Tokyo as Managing Editor, Asia Pacific Broadcast for Bloomberg News, responsible for bureaus in Hong Kong, Beijing, Singapore and Sydney. He’s covered news from more than a dozen countries, from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Vietnam. His awards include a national Emmy, and recognition from the Overseas Press Club of New York and the New York Film Festival. He has a Master’s Degree in Journalism from Columbia University and a BA in English from Dartmouth College. He and his wife and former CNN colleague Noriko Namiki have lived in Hawaii since 2009.

Mr. Dunham is a veteran Washington journalist and former president of the National Press Club. He covered the White House for Business Week magazine and the Houston Chronicle and has written about every U.S. presidential election since 1980. Before joining the faculty at Tsinghua, where he teaches multimedia journalism and U.S. media culture, Mr. Dunham was Washington bureau chief of the Houston Chronicle and creator of the popular blog “Texas on the Potomac.” He also served as Hearst Newspapers Washington bureau chief from 2009 to 2012.

From 1992 to July 2007, Mr. Dunham was a Washington correspondent for Business Week, covering issues as diverse as the federal budget, international trade and the Clinton and Bush White Houses. He also was Washington Outlook editor and a weekly columnist for BusinessWeek.com.

Since arriving in China, Mr. Dunham has offered regular news analysis for CCTV’s “Dialogue” program and China Radio International’s “Today” show. He has been interviewed by publications from the United States to Slovakia and Denmark.

Mr. Dunham was on the cutting edge of journalism technology and training in the U.S., serving as president of the National Press Club Journalism Institute from 2006 to 2013. He taught classes and hosted panel discussions at the institute on journalism skills, web content, social media and journalism ethics.

A native of Philadelphia, Mr. Dunham holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in history from the University of Pennsylvania. He is married to Pamela Tobey, a graphics director at the Washington Post.

Kris is directly involved with the rebuilding efforts in New York State. In June 2013, following the occurrence of Hurricane Irene, Tropical Storm Lee and most recently Superstorm Sandy– Governor Andrew Cuomo set out to centralize recovery and rebuilding efforts in impacted areas of New York State. Establishing the Office of Storm Recovery, the Governor aimed to address communities’ most urgent needs, while also encouraging the identification of innovative and enduring solutions to strengthen the State’s infrastructure and critical systems. Kris shares his experiences in these programs.

Maria is CEO and Executive Editor of Rappler.com. She has been a journalist in Asia for more than 25 years, most of them asCNN’s bureau chief in Manila then Jakarta. Maria was one of the founders of independent production company, Probe. She provided strategic directions and managed more than 1,000 journalists for the Philippines’ largest news group, ABS-CBN. Her latest book, “From Bin Laden to Facebook,” is part of her work as the Author-in-Residence and Senior Fellow at the International Centre for Political Violence & Terrorism Researchin Singapore. She was named the Southeast Asia Visiting Scholar at CORE Lab at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.