About the Program I Become an AAJA-Asia Trainer I Meet the Trainers
The following are AAJA-Asia members trained by the Google News Initiative. Individual trainers have additional expertise for training in areas such as interactive graphics and data journalism, as well as tapping into digital resources in Asia and available US resources. They come from the various markets in Asia as we aim to expand the network.
From top tp bottom and left to right:
Alicia (Ying Yu) Chen Independent journalist focusing on migration, social movements and human rights. Worked as a news researcher for The Washington Post’s Taipei office in 2021. Words also appear in WaPo, Al Jazeera English, RFA, The Reporter, and others.
Rebecca Isjwara is a reporter with S&P Global Market Intelligence, covering banking and financial services in APAC. She currently serves as the secretary for the Asia chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association, where she champions journalism through workshops, events, and annual conferences. Rebecca graduated from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. In her free time, she loves to brew a good cup of coffee, delve into third culture literary works, and paint. She can be reached at @beckyisj on pretty much every social media because she is a millennial.
Bernice Sibucao https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernicesibucao/
Betty Herlina https://www.linkedin.com/in/betty-herlina-bengkulu/
Cat Thomas is a freelance journalist and editor based in Taipei, Taiwan, covering a variety of beats including human rights and migrant labour. She has experience as a trainer and is keenly aware of how important it is to help journalists keep up to date/equip themselves with the skills to verify and fact check, especially in the rather fast moving area of digital tools.
Celine Samson is the head of VERA Files’ Facebook fact check team. She has 4+ years experience on fact checking and reporting on mis- and disinformation, and trains students, teachers, media, lawyers, and CSOs how to do fact checking and online verification. She has previously worked as a freelance interpreter and newsgathering assistant for a Reuters investigative series on the Philippines war on drugs, which won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 2018.
Chan Thul Currently co-founder and editor-in-chief of Kiripost.com, I started my career as a journalist at Leisure Cambodia in 2002, right after graduation with a Bachelor of Arts in English. After about a year, he won a scholarship to study at Independent Journalism Foundation (IJF) in Phnom Penh and was later hired as a stringer for Spanish news wire EFE before moving on to work for Chinese news agency Xinhua. After a short stint at Xinhua, in 2004, I joined The Cambodia Daily as a journalist covering courts and general news and as an assignment editor, before leaving to work with Reuters in 2010. I had been a full-time journalist for Reuters for nearly 13 years. And I am now still stringing for the agency. I am also co-founder and serves on the Board of Directors at Cambodian Journalism Alliance Association (CamboJA), the first independent membership-based network of journalists and media professionals in the country.
Dain Oh is an award-winning cybersecurity journalist based in South Korea and the founding editor-in-chief of The Readable. Prior to The Readable, she worked for The Electronic Times, the top IT newspaper in Korea, covering the cybersecurity industry on an in-depth level. She reported numerous exclusive stories, and her work related to the National Intelligence Service led to her being honored with the Journalist of the Year Award in 2021 by the Korea Institute of Information Security and Cryptology in a unanimous decision.
Diep Pham Former Bloomberg journalist, trainer since Jan. 2022
Duuya Baatar is a media entrepreneur, trainer, fact-checker and a journalist located in Mongolia. She has held various newsroom positions in the past decade, starting from a reporter to anchor, to producer and editor in chief at a local daily newspaper. She co-founded her own NGO in 2020 and has been helping media startups introduce a sustainable business model in their daily operations by trainings, workshops and long term mentorship programs. Duuya also worked as a part-time lecturer at a Mongolian university, majoring in various journalism classes. She recently took the ToT training by the Deutsche Welle akademie and carried out international trainings for various audience in Ghana, Zambia, Kenya, Barcelona, Indonesia, India and Lithuania.
Eimi Yamamitsu https://www.linkedin.com/in/eimi-yamamitsu/
Gemini Cheng is now a freelance journalist based in Hong Kong. She started her career as a journalist in 2012, then joined investigative reporting team at Ming Pao and i-Cable news, and was a deputy editor at Initium Media. She is currently studying Laws in Human Rights at HKU.
Grace Moon I am the global audience editor at The Washington Post’s Seoul breaking-news hub. This is the first-ever such role to be created at The Post as part of its mission to establish a global, 24/7 news cycle. I work closely with both Seoul breaking-news reporters as well as our Asia foreign correspondents to help expand The Post’s presence in Asia by analyzing search/SEO trends to identify both trending and enterprise story targets, overseeing social coverage on Facebook and Twitter, selecting digital story templates, analyzing traffic and writing SEO-friendly headlines and metadata to ensure that our coverage reaches global audiences. Prior to The Post, I was a freelance reporter and producer in Seoul, working with outlets including The Wall Street Journal, BBC, Rest of World, NBC News and more. I have been an active member of the Asian American Journalists Association for more than five years now and currently serve as the Vice President of the Seoul chapter and one of the directors of the affinity group for student and early-career journalists. I’m passionate about mentorship and international news.
Holly Chik is a reporter covering China for the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. She is also the co Vice President of AAJA’s Asia for Hong Kong. She previously served on the AAJA-Asia board as the student representative in 2019. She is a certified trainer of the AAJA-Asia Training Network
Jeyup Kwaak https://www.linkedin.com/in/jkwaak/
Joydeep Das Gupta https://about.me/jaydeepdasgupta
Lucille Sodipe Before joining AFP in 2020, Lucille Sodipe worked in broadcast media, producing television documentaries for over a decade. She was also a reporter and editor at Philippine fact-checking organisation Vera Files.
Mimi Lau https://www.linkedin.com/in/mimi-lau/
Nana Rhiski https://id.linkedin.com/in/nanariskhi
Nattakorn Ploddee https://www.linkedin.com/in/nattakorn-ploddee-5503a868/
Peerapon Anutarasoat More than a decade of being a journalist. Some day in 2014, He had an idea which had turned to an initiative of Thailand’s first fact-checking TV program and became a fact-checking platform with multiple content types for Thai people. He’s also a tech-journalist, blogger, and a drummer.
Prabesh Subedi is a journalist, trainer and communication researcher based in Kathmandu, Nepal. Having Masters in Journalism and Mass Communication from Tribhuvan University, Mr. Subedi has been through more than 15 years of experience ranging form print to digital media. A former president of Online Journalists Association Nepal (2014-2017), Subedi currently leads Digital Media Foundation. He is one of the trainers of AAJA-Asia’s Training Network. He contributes government and media community in Nepal as a digital media expert.
Qadaruddin Shishir is an editor in AFP’s Dhaka bureau who coordinates AFP Fact Check’s Bangla-language site. He joined AFP after working as an editor for BOOM Live in Bangladesh. He previously was the editor of BD FactCheck, Bangladesh’s first fact checking organization which he co-founded. Shishir is also a digital verification trainer who has led numerous workshops for fact checkers, journalists and students in Bangladesh organized by the Press Institute of Bangladesh, Asia Foundation, MRDI and other organizations. He authored a ‘Fact Checking and Verification Handbook’ in Bengali.
Rajneesh Bhandari https://np.linkedin.com/in/rajneeshbhandari
Regina Hing (Regina Lay) is currently Business News Editor and Host at One News, the cable news arm of Cignal, the Philippines’ leading cable channel. She is concurrently the Senior News Editor at PumaPodcast, a young, award-winning podcasting startup. She is also a regular host and moderator for high-level economic forums and conferences. Prior to that, Regina served as Anchor and Head of News for Bloomberg TV Philippines, running a team of more than two dozen and overseeing the daily editorial agenda for the network. She holds a Masters in Business and Economic Reporting from New York University.
Selina Cheng Selina Cheng is a business reporter at the Wall Street Journal, based in Hong Kong. Formerly, she was a reporter at Hong Kong Free Press and on the investigative desk of HK01, one of the city’s mainstream online news outlets. Her investigations include stories on Hong Kong’s million-dollar lobby in Washington DC, China’s most wanted millionaires who found asylum in the US, Harvey Weinstein’s business partner in Hong Kong, and the city’s largest Buddhist organization, where prominent monks embezzled millions in donation using life insurance schemes.
Shah Khalid https://www.linkedin.com/in/shah-khalid-shah-jee-21812547
Sherwin Chua I’m a journalism lecturer and academic in Sweden who is also doing a PhD. My specialization is journalism innovation and social media platforms. Prior, I was a journalist for about a decade: ex-magazine editor with SPH (Singapore) and newspaper reporter/subeditor (Today, MediaCorp, Singapore). I also collaborat with Wan-Ifra Asia on training programs, research and events. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sherwinchuakh
Soma Basu I am a former India editor of the fact check division of Agence France-Presse (AFP). I have been teaching at various Indian universities as guest lecturer (journalism) for several years. I am a media literacy trainer with the Factshala Initiative in India (supported by Data Leads, Internews and Google News Initiative) and also a certified fact check trainer with the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA). So far, I have conducted over 40 media literacy and factcheck trainings in South Asia. I am also a fellow of BBC’s Young Reporter India Initiative.
Van Nguyen is a journalist based in Hanoi who has been writing feature stories about climate change, energy transition and sustainable development. She also shoots and edits video packages. Her work is a combination of real issues, in-depth features and lifestyle videos reflecting all aspects of local life in Vietnam. She is a fellow of the 2021 Mekong Data Journalism Fellowship and a member of the Oxford Climate Journalism Network.
Ye Aung Thu I started my career in journalism in 2011, working at both local and international news organizations. I joined Agency France Press and worked there for about 10 years as chief photographer of Myanmar and just left 3 months ago due to the country situation. I also have 8 years of teaching CJs / photojournalists and been sharing on ground experience for photojournalist in Myanmar. I worked for the products which explain the visual presentations of Myanmar also.
Rubatheesan Sandranathan I’m a freelance journalist attached to the Sunday Times, Sri Lanka since 2014. Over the years, I have been reporting on post-war humanitarian issues, poaching, environment and agriculture. For the last two years, I have been assigned to the Investigation Desk where I’m focusing on corruption both in the government and private sector in addition to environment related stories. For my work, I was recognized with the Merit award for Investigative Journalist of the year-2021 by Editors Guild of Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka Press Institute.
Su Myat Wai https://www.linkedin.com/in/su-myat-wai-511522b/
The Google News Initiative is our effort to work with the news industry to help journalism thrive in the digital age. For more, visit https://newsinitiative.withgoogle.com/
The Asia chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association is one of AAJA’s largest chapters with members from India and Nepal and across Southeast Asia to China, Japan and South Korea. For more, visit https://aaja-asia.org/