A video recording of this program is now available on the Explore Content section of this website.
Social media has fundamentally changed journalism. The smartphone has accelerated this change putting social media in the hands of people on the go. We must ask ourselves, how is journalism different today? To prepare for the journalism of the future, journalists need to act now.
Find out how in this interactive seminar led by Sumaiya and Yusuf Omar, co-founders of @HashtagOurStories. The Omars’ will explain how they are using their platform to talk about COVID-19 stories and inviting others to join the discussion. They will provide guidance on how to best use your smartphone to tell stories and share with you some of their most inspiring stories to date.
This discussion will be introduced and moderated by Marcela Pizarro, assistant professor in residence at Northwestern Qatar.
[Image courtesy of Noma Bar/Dutch Uncle]
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Program credits
Yusuf Omar
Yusuf Omar is a multi-award-winning journalist, TEDx speaker, former CNN Senior Social Media Reporter on Snapchat and former Mobile Editor at the Hindustan Times in India where he empowered 750 journalists to tell stories with their phones. He has been a foreign correspondent with phones since 2010 and covered the Syrian civil war. Omar is also the co-founder of Hashtag Our Stories, an organization that has trained over 3,000 storytellers in 140 countries to create videos with their phones and wearable camera glasses.
Sumaiya Omar
Sumaiya Omar is Co-founder and CEO of Hashtag Our Stories, a video publisher that reached over a billion views in 2019. Her company was recently invested in by Snap Inc. Omar has spent five years experimenting with emerging news platforms and conducting mobile journalism workshops globally. She has shared her storytelling project on stages around the world, including the United Nations.
Marcela Pizarro
Marcela Pizarro is an award-winning journalist who worked as a producer and reporter at Al Jazeera English for 15 years. Her work at the channel's media critique show 'The Listening Post' focused on the politics and economics of news production and the history and culture of journalism(s) around the world. Heavily influenced by a background in cultural theory, her work has explored the politics of representation in the media through long format films, TV reports and animation. She holds a PhD in Latin American Cultural History from the University of London. Pizarro joined Northwestern Qatar’s Journalism and Strategic Communication Program in 2019.