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Luz Mely Reyes, a journalist fighting for press freedom in Venezuela

Luz Mely Reyes (@LuzMelyReyes) is a Venezuelan journalist, entrepreneur, writer and political analyst who co-founded Efecto Cocuyo, an independent media based in Caracas. She worked for the most relevant newspapers in her country as reporter, political editor and investigative editor. In 2012 she became the first woman to be editor in chief of a national Venezuelan newspaper. In 2015, due to the hostile environment for independent media, she quit her position and cofounded Efecto Cocuyo, an innovative site that delivers in-depth reports in a conflictive and restrictive environment. Her project raised $26,428 on a crowdfunding campaign.  

Luz believes that the “perfect storm” which is pushing the traditional media is an opportunity for journalists to give a step beyond their traditional role and become in owners of media which can be sustainable and innovative. With Efecto Cocuyo, Venezuelan journalists are introducing new ways to build a strong community of users through social media and apps, especially Twitter and WhatsApp.

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Madly Schenin-King - Helping local tourism business in the Carribean

“I am not a journalist, never had a press card but I always created my own content in my blog since 2005. Travel industry in Carribean is huge, but it’s mainly for the big companies. I want my blog to help small businesses benefit from the tourism opportunities.” - Madly Schenin-King

Madly joins the 2016 Tow-Knight Center Entrepreneurial Journalism class from Martinique - an insular region of France located in the Lesser Antilles in the eastern Caribbean Sea. One of the few islands in Carribean that officially speaks French.

Carribean is known to be a world famous tourism spot. According to Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) a total of 26.3 million visitors chose the Caribbean for a land based vacation in 2014. This was a 5.2% increase over the 25 million who travelled to the region the year before.

Carribean Council states that “tourism’s growth and success remain a central element in almost every single Caribbean economy, generating income, taxes and a whole host of other services and industries.”

But not everyone can get its share from this growing industry due to lack of quality information. This is a problem that needs to be solved and Madly sees this as an opportunity to build her own journalism project.

“Travel industry in Carribean is huge. But mostly big companies benefit, not the local people. I want to build an online platform focused on travel industry in Carribean and inform small businesses in order to help them benefit from the tourism opportunities.”

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VeilleTourismeAntilles/

Twitter: @TourismAntilles

Loves learning languages and new cultures

Madly was born in Martinique and raised in the small island. At the age of 19 she decided to go to Paris and have her bacheloria degree in social sciences. But it didn’t take very long to understand that science was not her true passion. She loved learning languages and new cultures. At age 21 she moved to Madrid to study communications with Erasmus exchange program. Madly can speak French, English, Spanish and Creole - the local language of Martinique.

From public relations to entrepreneurial journalism

Madly got her degree from Sorbonne Corporate Communications and started working in Public Relations, the other side of the media business.

“I started working in the PR industry in 2011, but didn’t like the way it works. Due to excessive communication channels, it is very hard to reach and convince journalists to make stories. That is why I decided to take another path in my life. I heard about this program two years ago, and since then I was dreaming to get here. I think myself more of an entrepreneur than a journalist. When I see an issue I try to fix it.”

We’re all human, we’re all the same

When I ask Madly about an influential person on her life, her answer is, Aimé Césaire - one of the founders of the négritude movement. “Aimé’s ideas inspired me very much. What he basically says that for centuries black people have been slaves and now it’s time for them to be aware of this. He denounces all types of colonialism and I totally agree with him. It doesn’t matter your color, religion or race, In the end we’re all human, we’re all the same.”

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Sergio Spagnuolo: Visualising Journalist Layoffs in Brazil

An infographic from Sergio’s research into journalist layoffs.

Sergio (31) is a tech and finance reporter currently living in Curitiba in the south of Brazil. He is originally from Sao Paulo. Some of his previous work experiences include being a desk editor for Reuters and a press representative for UNDP.

His startup, called Volt and which he founded in 2014, is a news agency focusing on data journalism. While he is currently trying to find ways to monetise the project, he has already had an important breakthrough with a survey he conducted last year on journalist layoffs in Brazil. For this survey, Sergio documented every officially recorded journalist layoff between 2012 and 2015. His main findings included that about 1 500 journalists had been laid off in that period and most were in print journalism. He also says that a lot of media companies in Brazil are not making much money to support their operations and his biggest concern is that the quality of journalism in Brazil is suffering, and will continue to do so in the near future.

As a result of this, there has been increased interest in his work and some monetary opportunities have arisen through Sergio teaching courses in programming and data journalism to journalists and NGO staff.

While here at CUNY, Sergio wants to learn to be a more savvy entrepreneurial journalist. He says he knows how to do journalism, but not entrepreneurship.

Sergio enjoys basketball, running and video games as hobbies and did not get a chance to attend any of the 2014 Brazil World Cup matches live as he was covering the tournament for Reuters at that time. When I asked about his feelings about the (in)famous 7-1 semi-final drubbing Brazil got from Germany in the same tournament, Sergio responded quite flatly, “No comment,” which is something he’s probably more used to hearing, than saying!

Interestingly, while commonly referred to as Sergio, his first name is actually Antonio. He adds, however, that there is no real reason why this is.

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Thiago Medaglia: "scientific disclosure is really deficient in Brazil”

Thiago is an environmental journalist working to improve how scientific research is documented and made available in Brazil.

Where did you grow up?

I was born and raised in Sao Jose dos Campos, a medium-size city (700,000 inhabitants) located 80 km away from Sao Paulo city, but I've been living and working in Sao Paulo for the past 15 years.

What is your work background?

Mostly, environmental journalism, but I also have experience in covering science, traveling and outdoor sports. I started to work as a journalist in 2004 and, since then, I've been traveling to cover stories in Brazil and Latin America. As a reporter, I had the honor to travel to 19 (from 26) Brazilian states, as well as to Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba, England and Spain. I also published five books, all of them related to environmental issues in my country. In 2008, as an independent reporter, I wrote my first article to National Geographic Brazil magazine and I still play that role, but I also worked for them as assistant editor between 2011 and 2013. In 2014, I was editorial-director in a small publishing house in Brazil. I had a good income every month, but I was unhappy with the quality of my journalistic work so I decided to make a big change and to focus completely in digital media and data journalism. Now I work as special projects editor for a Brazilian startup named InfoAmazonia and have been developing my own platform for the past 14 months.

What interests you most about journalism?

The opportunity to make people relate with each other. If I am not mistaken, at Iliad, Homer mentions the moment when Aquiles and king Priam look each other in the eyes. Priam wanted his son's body, Hector, back for a proper burial ceremony, but Aquiles refused. When the king kneeled before him, the warrior looked at his eyes and realized that suffering is a common feeling for all humans, even for a king. It's one of the things that makes us equal. People forget that and I believe that journalism is one of the best tools to help them remember. This sense of equality can cause social change and technology opens a new perspective for journalists to create relevant content.

What project will you be working on?

I am developing a digital global platform for scientists and media professionals (journalists, photographers, programmers, video-makers). The idea is to bring these people together and generate reliable free content to society. This community will orbit around a platform that we call Ambiental (ambiental.media).

I had the idea more than 10 years ago, when I was a reporter at a Brazilian magazine called Terra (”Earth” in Portuguese). One of my duties was to find scientific papers that could result into content for the magazine. However, I found that task extremely difficult - I discovered that scientific disclosure is really deficient in Brazil. Over the years, I received many messages from researchers showing a huge interest in share their results with society through media work. Turns out that, with the media crisis, there is no room left for science and the environment when it comes to investments for the media coverage. What I am trying to do is to unite several demands: scientists wants to achieve the general public; common people want to know more about the scientific perspective of several issues; since our content is free for replication (under Creative Common rules), media outlets will be able to take an advantage of our work.

Keep up with Thiago and his project on Twitter @thiagomedaglia and at www.ambiental.media.

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Victoria Schneider

As a young girl Victoria Schneider was "kind of the boy of the family...." At least, on the football field. She enrolled at German Sports University to study sports science, management and communications. She dreamed of being a great sports writer. As the only woman at local sports desks editors quizzed the only woman on arcane factoids about defunct German football. "Even your male colleagues don't know that," she wanted to snap back. She also soon tired of the university environment: boys hanging out in the gym. Victoria decided to study abroad as much as possible. She moved to Melbourne for a term, then Bordeaux, and then Israel.

As her friend rushed to cover protests in Tunisia and Egypt, Victoria had to return to Germany to finish her journalism apprenticeship. She covered the Arab Spring during holidays, flying to the Middle East and North Africa at Christmas and summer breaks. After training, she chased stories around the Middle East, learned Arabic, scraped together a freelancer’s living, and met “the most amazing people.” But Victoria and readers were frustrated with stereotypes—exacerbated by foreign media—of the region: unending war, radical fundamentalists. "I don't want anybody to read my stories and say, ‘that's sad but what can I do.’"

She moved to Johannesburg and crowdfunded Dirty Profits Exposed, a project to spotlight foreign investments that fuel mining in sub-saharan Africa and export minerals and profits abroad. She split her time between Johannesburg and rural communities across the region, talking to villagers displaced by transnational corporations. She continues to report about palm oil plantations, but Victoria left South Africa for now. "My heart is in the Middle East,” she said. 

Victoria came to the Tow-Knight Center to develop a platform to elevate Middle Eastern voices in Europe and European writers in the Middle East. The platform will publish local journalists instead of hiring them as translators and fixers.

~ EE

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Caroline Shin - Cooking With Granny

Caroline Shin’s powerful ability to make you “come for the food, stay for the stories” can be attributed largely to her Korean grandmother, who raised her since she was 5 years old. Caroline’s grandma came to New York at the age of 60, leaving behind the only culture and language she had ever known in order to take care of Caroline and her siblings while their parents worked long hours. Caring for her Korean grandchildren growing up in a foreign land meant more than just nourishing them -- it also meant feeding them a heaping sideplate of culture along with their kimchi.   

Growing up cooking Korean dishes in the traditional manner alongside her grandmother, listening to her fascinating and inspirational tales of migration from North Korea during war, and laughing at her quirky methods of adapting to life as an immigrant in the US (becoming addicted to watching wrestling and ordering “Big Mac” at any and every burger joint in New York), Caroline thought it was important to share her grandma with the world.

“I realized that when my grandma passes, her recipes, traditional cooking methods, and history will die with her, and this will be true for many immigrant grandmothers.”

While at Columbia Journalism School, Caroline conceived the idea of Cooking With Granny, a web series documenting grandmothers’ recipes and stories across cultures in New York.

“The main aim of Cooking With Granny is to preserve cultural heritage through food and storytelling.”

Technically speaking, “Cooking With Granny” is a one-woman-show in that it’s produced, hosted, (mostly) filmed, edited, and marketed by Caroline. Her knife-sharp skills behind-the-scenes and natural charm hosting on-camera are staple ingredients for any show’s recipe for success. But the secret sauce of Cooking With Granny is the unique flavor each grandmother brings to the table with her personal story of survival, perseverance, and resilience.

From a Trinidadian who recounts how she left a physically abusive relationship while whipping up a fiery hot sauce, to a Russian-Jew who details how she escaped the siege of Leningrad as a child while making stuffed peppers, each immigrant grandmother imparts a delicious recipe along with valuable, intimate history and life lessons -- far beyond what an Instagram #foodporn post can provide.

Choosing among thousands of incredible grandmothers with amazing stories in New York is tough enough, but Caroline’s bigger challenges are securing funding, sponsorships, and advertising to keep the food flowing and the show going for another season, and organizing and prioritizing her numerous ideas to build the show’s brand. Her goals run the gamut from hosting live cooking events with the grandmothers to starting a podcast, and paying dedicated crew and seeking distribution via a digital network--all of which she’s confident CUNY’s Tow-Knight Entrepreneurial Journalism program will help her with, and more.

The program’s greatest bonus for Caroline are her colleagues in the 2016 cohort. “It’s amazing to be part of a group of entrepreneurial-minded journalists who want to start projects using the new digital tools and platforms that old media structure didn’t allow for,” she says. “I love being around that energy.”

“I downloaded so many apps that my phone crashed during the scavenger hunt!”

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Stephen Jefferson: "There is a technology gap in newsrooms"

Tech, skateboard and an interest for the unknown in journalism

The two journeys through Europe in the past years were life-changing moments for Stephen

follow him at twitter! @bloomfornews

Where did you grow up? I grew up in Sterling, Virginia, it’s about 30 minutes from Washington DC. I lived there most of my life but have also traveled to Europe many times and am excited to now be settled in New York for the fellowship.

What is your work background? I studied Computer Science at George Mason University and have been working in web development for the past decade. Code is a strong passion of mine, it allows me to be creative, build new things and solve problems every day. In high school, I started a nonprofit for skateboarding in my hometown.  Being a skateboarder, I knew we had the bad rep in the community and were disrespected since we didn’t have a local skatepark. Every week I would work to advocate and fundraise, it was a really great experience and had a positive impact on the community. I built a website for it which I kept improving over a few years as I learned more about programming. With that experience, I was hired to manage the Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Maserati dealerships around DC. It was incredible to work with them and was definitely my favorite job - they receptionist would make the best iced coffee. I worked with them to build a website that managed inventory and sales, along with really awesome photo galleries. Since then, I’ve jumped around various marketing firms and freelance jobs. It’s been a really great experience. However, I’ve always had a thought to start my own project again. I guess the jobs have gradually gotten less challenging, I feel the need for something more thrilling.

What interests you most about journalism? What interests me about journalism is the unknown. There are a lot of uncertainties, assumptions, and questions that have yet to be solved. This is very exciting to me. I’ve learned how much strategies are changing, for better or for worse, and that the need for sustainable ideas have never been more significant. I think I can provide a perspective that changes the way people think and work with news.

What is your project? How did you come up with the project? My project is called Bloom, it’s a platform to improve how local news is organized and distributed online. A few years ago, I began working on Bloom as an experiment with my brother.  Initially, we wanted to help connect residents with each other in the community. We simply wanted to prove to ourselves that it was possible and worked on it on-and-off in our free time.  I remember one day while in London, I picked up a newspaper, began reading through each article and finding places it talked about. I learned how well the concept of Bloom applied to the data behind news, so we began studying the industry more in depth.  We restructured Bloom and launched a simple, collaborative application in 2015 that allows publishers to geotag their stories.  The more research we do and the more the industry changes, the more opportunity we see with this type of concept. We’re really excited to be at CUNY to bring more ideas to life.

What are your biggest questions that you’re hoping to answer while at CUNY? I’m most curious about learning what’s involved in the day-to-day lives of journalists. I’ve never worked in a newsroom or directly with a journalist before, I know that experience is essential if you want to build a business for them. I also think there’s a technology gap in many newsrooms. Publishers limit themselves to what’s offered by social media and content management systems - this limits the opportunities. I believe if we change the way news data is gathered online, we’ll be able to uncover new solutions.  However, educating journalists to use tools that can do this - especially geographic tools - has been difficult so far.

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Ligia Guimaraes: Brazilian Women Are Exceptional But Taken for Granted

Ligia Guimaraes, a business reporter by trade for the past 11 years in Sao Paulo, Brazil, wants to develop a storytelling platform to highlight the experiences of Brazilian women.

As a business reporter, she always made a special effort to add human faces to her articles to make the stories more relatable.

“In times when the debt of the people was increasing a lot, for example, I wrote stories about people who were really, really in debt and the impact of that in their lives (as the lead-in to the story),” she said.

It’s this approach that she’s honed over the years that she wants to make the focus of her new venture.

“I really think there are really nice stories of Brazilian women. It’s not easy to be a woman in Brazil because the Latin countries are generally very sexist, and there isn’t much support from the government in public policies (for women).”

Women who are low-income have to struggle a lot, and usually have to rely on one another for help. Women also have to deal with with stereotypical expectations (such as physical looks). And when women are presented in the media, it’s usually through a male perspective. Ligia says there are “many stories of women overcoming problems” that show how amazing they are, including those of her own mother and great-grandmother. But these women are taken for granted.

Feminism Is Bubbling Up in Brazil

“We had one feminist organization in Brazil that started the hashtag on Twitter,#MyFirstHarrassment, and women started sharing about the first time a man harassed them( physically, verbally, etc.). Women were saying these things happened as young as 5, 6 or 7 years old.”

“No one is telling their stories the way they deserve to be told, produced in a really beautiful way,” she said.

The goals of the website are to improve self-esteem and encourage Brazilian women with a non-judgmental approach, telling their life stories and decisions “from a woman’s perspective.”

“I hope it will inspire other initiatives, including building a community,” she said.

Ligia says she wants to catch a few live shows while she’s working on her #EJ16 project here in New York City.

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Nicola Menzie: Give voice to those who are not being heard

By bringing different voices into the debate on religious matters, Nicola Menzie wants to fight stereotypes. And she has the credentials to talk about that: Nicola is a Christian journalist, a reggae and tofu lover, a Jamaican who grew to be an authentic New Yorker, and a student that juggles entrepreneurial journalism at CUNY while pursuing a master’s degree in theology. Her new venture, hopefully, will reinforce the fact that not all religious people think the same way about everything, and that there is more to be told than the dominant male/white opinions that get space in the media most of the time.

“There  are so many other voices that are not being heard. Not every Christian person is anti-gay, anti-Muslim, for example”, she says. As a reporter writing for The Christian Post over the last years, she felt that in the media debate on such important matters, the most extreme and conservative opinions are getting most of the space. Women and minorities, as well as liberal Christians, should be more frequent in her Faithfully Magazine, a fun, bold and inclusive platform she will be developing for the next months.

Her goal is, with a more balanced range of opinions, to reduce the extremism and the misinterpretation reflected on ultraconservative readers comments on topics such as refugees and Muslims.

Raised by religious parents, Nicola says she developed her personal faith about 10 years ago, and that have been, since then, an important part of her life. The program at CUNY has brought great new energy to her professional life, and she is really excited to work with her fellows from the #EJ16 for the next months.

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Emrys Eller

Here are the three foods Emrys would take to a deserted island if he was to spend the rest of his life there:

Chinese noodles (”or any kind of noodles as long as it is not pasta”)

Kale. No, actually: peanut butter (Not because he would get tired of kale but because he really loves peanut butter) 

Pink lady apples.

Emrys Eller is one of those people you meet and wonder: who is this person?

Emrys Eller is 33 years old and the oldest son of a hippie-couple who decided to withdraw from society and found a commune in the forest. From scratch. He was a 4-year-old boy when his parents left San Francisco, where he was born, and traveled north to Kasilof, Alaska.

When he talks about his childhood it sounds like it could have been made up. They lived in a cabin, and as there was no schools around he was homeschooled, together with the 40 or so other kids who belonged to the four families living in the commune. He grew up vegan (which he gave up years ago) and spent his childhood “hanging out in the woods.” Playing, running, being free. Life was good.

“It was beautiful and it was difficult. And it was really cold. We spent the first winter in a Tipi because we didn’t have any homes yet. My parents were just travelling around looking for a place to start a community. They got some land and there was not much there but - trees. And that’s how we spent the first winter. One of my earliest memories is cuddling up with my sister against the stove.” 

Emrys’ education included studying the world. Not in books - literally.

“When I was a teenager my parents sent me away. I went into the world and learned about other cultures. I went to India and Cambodia when I was 16. all of that from other people seeing that there are so many other ways to live.

“I remember my first day in Asia. 16. We landed in Kalkutta. Never been anywhere before. I was this white boy who came from the woods. The first night I didn’t sleep. The noise and the madness… I remember being scared. We were in a hostel with 50 other people. I remember at one point in the night it suddenly went quiet - but only for half an hour before the sun stared to rise and the monkeys came and the noise ... and that was it.”

He learned about life.

At 19 he left the commune and went out to Community College in Seattle. For years he floated in and out of Community Colleges, taking courses in music, arts, theatre, playwriting, things he has always loved.

“I was wandering around searching”, is what he would call those years.

And then he came to New York, the place where, as he says, he found himself. “At least I think so”. He laughs.

He started writing in New York. “About my family. Stories of growing up. Reflections. Theatre scripts - I wrote all kinds of stuff.”

He then went to the New School to study English and Creative Writing, and recently graduated from the Entrepreneurial Master’s Degree at CUNY.

And now he’s here. Why? Meaningful stories.                                                   VS

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Reed Dunlea –  Love for Music Leads Journalism

Reed Dunlea far right with his lunch. Photo: Issa Mansaray

Reed Dunlea started his own music magazine - Greatest City in the World to fill a void in his hometown. Growing up in Poestenkill, in a small town in upstate New York, he had a lucid idea of what he wanted to do – entertain his listeners with music, and provide news. This was his earlier beginning to becoming a journalist. But, talking to Reed, he has much to offer about his love for music. At almost six feet tall, Reed carries a well-trimmed mustache. Few days earlier, he explained to some of his Tow-Knight Entrepreneurial Journalism colleagues that he likes keeping his mustache. That, it sometimes helps him to blend with local communities when covering news in foreign countries. He passed his hands over it for a few seconds, to emphasize his point. At age 16, he started doing what he described as “my own form of journalism.” For Reed, it was a hobby, as he recollected his earlier beginnings in journalism. “I’ve been interested in music and music-scenes for a long time …In High School, I started hosting a radio show on a community station in my hometown… kind of playing a lot of music covering the local music scene. I started doing music journalism for a while for myself and for the kind of community.” Later, he started “putting” his own music magazine, Greatest City in the World together. Reed, xeroxed copies and sold them for $5 apiece. He did that for three years, and then, switched to audio cassettes, doing interviews and airing then on the local radio channel – WFMU. For Reed, journalism was now a way of making a living and at the same time, documenting his community, and a way of giving access to his local music audience. A few years later he started working for local nonprofits such as The New York Public Research Group, heading a student campaign group on environmental issues, higher education, and New York state politics. “I didn’t like the place so much,” said Reed about the Research Group. “I learnt, I needed to work for a place that I really supported their issues,” During his free time, he practiced Citizen Journalism, finding ways to continue covering communities. “Whenever I write about music, I’m writing about music and artistic expression,” Reed adds. “I think I’m always writing about music as a way to getting into the story. About the political and socio-economic issues.” For now, he concentrates his times working on video, interactive journalism, covering New York City cultural and political issues for various news outlets. As a 2016 Tow-Knight Journalism fellow, Reed wants to explore how to make money and start a business telling traditionally non-visional stories in visual ways. 

Issa A. Mansaray

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Ghazala Irshad: Arab Spring Tweeter to Tow Knight Fellow

Ghazala Irshad went to Egypt in search of journalism. And she found it in a huge way.

On January 20, 2011, Ghazala landed in Egypt to start her master’s program in TV and Digital Journalism at the American University in Cairo. Five days later, more than 50,000 Egyptian protesters flooded Tahrir Square, setting in motion what would be known around the world as the Arab Spring. The school shut down and ordered all foreigners to fly back home. But Ghazala stayed put.

“History is happening here, and I can’t miss this,” she said. “This is the reason I’m here.”

From Egypt, Libya, and Gaza, she live-tweeted street protests, democratic elections, bomb explosions. “It was nonstop. News was breaking ten times a day. I basically got whiplash. It was traumatizing, so I liked to share the bright things, too.” Interesting characters, family gatherings, music concerts, for instance.

After 2 ½ years in the Middle East, she held social media positions at a United Arab Emirates-produced, social media-driven travel show called Peeta Planet, where the audience got to decide the hosts’ itinerary, and The GroundTruth Project, a nonprofit that helps young journalists around the world produce in-depth stories from on the ground.

Throughout her social media career, her philosophy is clear: “If it’s not funny, interesting or useful, I won’t tweet it.”

Currently, Ghazala is at the Tow Knight program to concretize her passion for multiculturalism and social media into a business. She’s thinking of producing a video series featuring the experiences of first-generation U.S.-born Americans traveling to their parents’ native countries.

So how exactly will she do this?

“I’m here to figure that out.”

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Once a trillionare, now in search of women rights in Zimbabwe

A couple of years before Fungai Machiori packed her bags to study in the United Kingdom, she use to be a trillionaire in Zimbabwe. That was not a good thing, though, as the inflation in this African country was so high until 2009 that a dozen of zeros added after whole numbers did not matter that much.

“Everyone in Zimbabwe was a trillionaire, it was crazy”, this journalist said with her usual big, if only shy, smile. Now that Zimbabwe uses the US dollar (and soon the Chinese yuan), this exaggerated status no longer applies.

Not being super rich, however, did not kept her from achieving so much. She lived abroad, visited several countries, worked for the United Nations and opened her own venture, Her Zimbabwe, before the age of 30.

Now 31 years old, Fungai was born and currently lives in Bulawayo, the second biggest city in her country after the capital Harare. Some 1 million people live there now.

Concerned about the constant repression and violence faced by women in her country, Fungai founded Her Zimbabwe in 2012 as a non-profit news organization to tell stories about women, seeking to empower them with knowledge and bring awareness about the topic.

“It was always hard to find journalistic content about women in Zimbabwe, I wanted to change that”, she said with her firm voice.

More than just starting her own venture, she wanted to take action and put into practice what was learned during a Master’s studies in the University of Reading, Britain, from which she graduated in 2011 with a full scholarship.

She is now thinking about ways to enhance her business capabilities and take Her Zimbabwe into a whole new level - a more sustainable, effective venture.

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Carolina Astuya: Chilean entrepreneurial journalist changes their commute

“I’ve quit the company this week, just before I joined the Tow-Knight Program!” Carolina smiled cheerfully. Carolina Astuya, Chilean entrepreneurial journalist, is now preparing for launching the new media startup, named “MetroCommunity”.

Carolina is a professional in digital and multi-platform contents for more than 15 years. She studied journalism and esthetics at the Chile Catholic University. She started her professional career at a news media in Chile, Terra Chile in 2001. She mainly covered on entertainment topics, handled an exclusive segment for women, titled "Woman Zone". In that program, she managed a lot of topics useful for women including love, health or their relationships with family. "Since I was a kid I wanted to be journalist. I'd dreamed to cover news, especially on music events like Viña’s Festival, the most important music event in Chile. My dream came true. I covered that event for 4 years! I thought 'It’s my party' and enjoyed so much." Then, Carolina hosted a streaming video program "Video Chat" where she interviewed with public people. She was the first editor of mobile contents at Terra Chile. 

In 2008, she joined VTR Globalcom S.A., Chilean largest cable television provider. As a social media manager, she has developed new social TV Study at VTR. In Chile, as the penetration of mobile phone is huge and internet connection is good, many mobile audiences are always tweet their opinion on each TV program. So doing a continuous research on mobile audiences are so essential. She was responsible for the digital strategy for different cable TV programs for 7 years.

Carolina loves saying by Nelson Mandela, "It seems impossible until it's done". Also she like the saying. "If you want, you can". She respects any person who has passion and go for their dreams. "I believe in the inner power of everyone". She loves to learn new things. She is now dreaming to run more than 10 kilometers every day. "I'll do it!" Yes, she is a true entrepreneur.

Carolina loves her home country Chile. "Its landscapes are so great. Atacama Desert, Antarctica and Easter Island. We have wonderful beaches, deserts, mountains and rivers, while we are so far from the rest of the world. God bless Internet jajaja." However, she was very frustrated on commuting by subway in Santiago, the capital of Chile. The car traffic is so bad and most of commuters use subway. About 2.5 millions commuters per week use the subway in Santiago. "Most workers have to commute to their offices for one and half an hour in the morning and evening. They are always crowded. Many commuters lead stressful lives in too packed carriages. They tend to get angry, tired and even violent. I feel we have to give the opportunity for them to change such feelings in that moments. I want to them to feel happy!"

Chilean Metro, speedy but so crowded

To solve the problem using her extensive experience on digital media, she decided to launch the new project "MetroCommunity". "It is an app that works without Wi-Fi connection, specially for the people that use the Metro in Santiago. My audience are the Metros’s users, because I want to create loyalty programs to the users, with the reward like free Metro tickets or bags useful for commute by subway."

As a journalist, she thinks it important to understand the needs of audiences. She believes this new apps will help the audiences feel peaceful, attractive and positive in subways. To sharpen her idea and to change her life as a journalist, she applied the Tow-Knight Program. "I'm so happy here in NYC. I'm so happy to be with my colleagues on this program. I would like to learn how to do business on journalistic projects. I want to contribute to this program with my experience in social media sector and my humor sense…jajaja!" Yes, I know how humorous she is!

She intend to test her idea with Metro commuters in Chile. "I need to know what the audiences want, what mobile device will work well on Metro in Chile and what would be the best information for them. Also I need to talk with the Metro company to get some alliances with my business. There are lots of points I have to do". She would like to launch her new project in the last quarter in 2016.

Text by Katsunao Ishii

[towknight]

“Katsu” Ishii: A “nonfiction” man from Japan in 6 answers

He studied Economics at Kyoto University in Japan. When he graduated, he was wondering if he should go to a graduate school to do further study. However, working at a publishing house was also his dream…and he was offered his job by both one of the leading newspapers and one of the leading publishing houses in Japan, while he chose the latter.

1- What was your job in Japan?

- I have edited magazines and books focusing on narrative nonfictions by prominent journalists in Japan for 12 years. I've worked at Kodansha, Japanese publishing house. In 2004, just after graduating from school, I joined them as an editor. For first 5 years I was working at Weekly Gendai, which is one of the major weekly magazines for businessmen in Japan. I worked there not only as an editor, also as a reporter, mainly dealt with business and crime coverage in those days. After that I was transferred into the non-fiction books department, where I launched the quarterly magazine G2, concentrating on narrative nonfictions.  At the same time, I have edited about 10 books a year, independently without any agent.

2- Why did you decide to apply to Tow Knight?

- CUNY’s program will help shape my ideas on how to continue valuable work by independent Japanese journalists. Luckily, I'm on sabbatical sponsored by my company since May 2015. I went to NYC as a visiting scholar at Columbia University, where I knew CUNY has a great fellowship program that enable me to shape my idea. Tow-Knight program is ideal for me to launch my idea in Japan. First, it features hands-on training and would quickly reveal flaws in my business plan. Secondly, the close relationship with experienced great fellows is so helpful, because entrepreneurship in the media business is not especially mature in Japan.

3- Can you explain your project?

- It is a website of Japanese nonfiction. Writers publish stories and get paid for research costs. Readers enroll to access stories. Editors work as agents. I name it REPOFEED for the time being.

REPOFEED will help Japanese journalists to publish stories by obtaining funds from readers who choose to participate. Journalists will include both writers and documentary filmmakers. At present, most Japanese journalists cover their research costs by publishing articles in printed magazines, a system that is effectively collapsing.

Journalists will have their own pages on REPOFEED. First, they show their topic, the estimated time need to complete a story, and the total research costs required. They can also choose the degree to which each reader who funds the project can participate in the project. Then, appeals for readers begin. Once journalists obtain sufficient funds from readers, they receive research costs after overhead is deducted. Journalists can also choose their preferred editor from a REPOFEED pool.

4-Why did you choose that topic to your project?

- To sustain the great nonfiction sector in Japan in order to help readers, authors and even editors.  The genre has become difficult to run profitably in Japan because of the downturn in print sales and the difficulty of monetizing the digital space. Determining how to sustain this genre at one of Japan’s leading publishing houses has thus become a most important issue for me. I now want to focus on developing concrete ideas for a new path for nonfiction in digital media.

5-What do you expect of your project?

- I would like to begin my project after I return to my company next year, in the hopes that it would help the Japanese nonfiction sector survive and hopefully thrive. I'd like to have the platform all the creators can use.

6-What do you expect from this program?

- I'd like to learn different perspective on entrepreneurial journalism from different splendid fellows. 19 fellows have different backgrounds, which is so informative and helpful for me to create new ideas. Although I've worked with various people on daily basis as an editor, I think the diversity of talented fellows at Tow-Knight program is extremely great. Surely I want to know the technical matters to create new things, but I believe forming the mindset for being entrepreneur is more essential, which would be stimulated by other fellows works. I'm very excited now!

[towknight]

Issa Mansaray is a determined international journalist. “At an early age I loved the media,” said Mansary, who grew up in Sierra Leone and is now the Executive Editor of The AfricaPaper. His father printed newspapers, but the political climate in his country was not supportive of it.

“At the height of the dictatorship, they couldn’t read papers that were critical of the government in public, or they would arrest you,” said Mansaray. As a child, he remembers finding all sorts of different newspapers bundled up in his father’s room.

Mansaray went to high school at Milton Margai College of Education and Technology. He started helping his father distribute newspapers, and was writing about mining and politics in the south of the country for For that People Newspaper.

He quickly became the editor of Solidar Press University Newspaper. “That was when I sensed the power of media,” said Mansaray, as people in authority began responding to his work. “I had a passion for advocating for press freedom for students who were not treated fairly, and for human rights.”

While Sierra Leone was at war, Mansaray went to Austria to study at Webster University, and eventually ended up at Columbia University to obtain a masters in journalism as a Pulitzer Fellow. He started The AfricaPaper in the United States with other African journalists, which they saw as a “common newspaper for Africa and the U.S. with reporters from each country reporting their own stories.”

Mansaray sees his work as necessary. “For me it’s not just a passion. It’s to address the pressing issues in my country and continent, and to leave my mark addressing issues that are pressing for journalists,” he said.

-Reed Dunlea

[towknight]

Peter Fray: Aussie Funny-man on Being a Journo, Teacher and J-preneur

‘I’ve had to lay off so many people that I’d like to create new jobs.”

That’s part of the mission for Peter Fray now as a Tow-Knight Fellow. He’s someone who’s reached the dizzying heights of his profession in Australia. He’s been Editor-in-Chief of one of Australia’s storied newspapers, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Founder of PolitiFact Australia. “That was the best thing I did in journalism”, he says. Currently, he’s in the business of passing on best practices as Professor of the Practice of Journalism at the University of Technology Sydney. 

“I better do something better than milk cows at 4 in the morning.” 

But getting to where he is has not been easy. Born in England, Peter spent many of his formative years there. At age 16, he dropped out of school and began work on a dairy farm. But a few years later, he decided to apply for a scholarship that would allow him to learn farm management in Australia. As part of the program, he found himself at Moorine Rock. “It was incredibly hot, it was incredibly isolated,” he says of his time there.

“I worked as a copy kid in a newspaper for hungover journalists.”

One day, Peter had an epiphany. He realised that he would never be a farmer. He had, however, worked briefly as an errand boy at a newspaper back in England, and luckily, the same college in Moorine Rock was offering a BA in rural journalism. Peter jumped, and has never looked back.

“If you’d said to me that you’d be the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald someday, I’d have slapped your face.” 

Either that, or bought you a drink, Peter says. He continues, “I’m immensely grateful to my adopted country. I’m 54 in a month. I’ve lived there for 34 years, almost. I always felt that my life would be elsewhere - I never liked England much - and now I feel I have a responsibility to give back. I want to find new ways to employ people/create jobs, and to teach.”

“I have a wife, Katie, playwright, married for 16-17 years. Daughter, Madigan, she’s 12. I have a son, Bob who’s 10.” 

Peter says he’s been incredibly lucky. “It’s always been a mystery to me, how I’ve been so lucky. In a way, this course is me testing that luck, a little bit.”

“You have to please yourself before you please anyone else.”

Peter says the one quality is loathes about himself is that he has a tendency to please everybody. Perhaps that’s a failing he says. On the other hand, his favourite qualities about himself are that he’s “very friendly, and very curious.” Perfect qualities for a journalist.

Peter clearly enjoys being himself, but ask him, “if not yourself, who would you be?”

“George Clooney”, he says. 

Peter’s a very funny guy. Check his Twitter feed out [sample tweet below]. 

Profile by H R Venkatesh. Hat tip: Proust questionnaire.