About the Program I Become an AAJA-Asia Trainer I Meet the Trainers
AAJA-Asia is proud to collaborate with outstanding news professionals from all parts of Asia. These AAJA-Asia members annually attend certifying Training of Trainers sessions led the Google News Initiative. The AAJA-Asia Training Network’s 2024 trainers are listed below.
Adhitya Ramadhan is the Editor of Harian Kompas, the national newspaper of Indonesia, and regularly takes several prospective journalists under his tutelage. He has served as mentor in several journalist fellowships held by the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) in Indonesia, especially in the field of health coverage.
Aye Min Thant is a freelance journalist and editor, who was most recently working as editor for Myanmar Now and Frontier Myanmar. In 2019, Aye was part of the Reuters team that won a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. They have worked with regional and international outlets such as the New York Times, Rest of World, New Naratif, Citizen News, Deutsche Welle News, the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Public Broadcasting Service, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Bernice Sibucao is the Deputy Head of the Digital Strategy and Innovation Lab at GMA, with over a decade’s experience of working in media. She started out as one of the first Social Media Producers of GMA News and Public Affairs, spearheading the network’s online promotional strategy and campaigns. She later led GMA’s first Digital Video Section, working with online-exclusive content and integrating new technologies such as AI in the newsroom.
Betty Herlina is a journalist and founder of Bincang Perempuan, an online publication featuring women journalists and discussing women’s issues. With nearly 13 years of experience working in media, she has received a number of prestigious fellowships, including from the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) Indonesia, Tempo Institute, Indonesia Association for Media Development (PPMN), AAJA-Asia, and the Nuffic-Orange Knowledge Programme. Her work often involves women citizen journalists and invites them to share their journey of finding their voices.
Bhrikuti Rai is a journalist from Nepal, currently working in Hong Kong. She has reported on environmental, migration and human rights for several Nepali and international outlets such as the Nepali Times, BBC, The Los Angeles Times and Radiolab, winning several awards like The True Story Award and Laadli Media Awards. She has also trained journalists on environmental and labor migration issues, and is the co-creator of Nepali feminist podcast Boju Bajai.
Cat Thomas is a freelance journalist and editor based in Taipei, Taiwan, covering a variety of beats including human rights and migrant labour. As a trainer, she 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 fast moving area of digital tools.
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 is a trainer and former journalist, having worked as a reporter for Bloomberg News for 7 years. She provided wide coverage on commodities such as coffee and rice, as well as Vietnamese politics and economics. Since 2022, she has worked to train the next generation of journalists in Asia.
Dulamkhorloo Baatar is a journalist, trainer, media entrepreneur and fact-checker. At 25, she became the Editor-in-Chief of Mongolia’s third-largest daily newspaper, The Official Gazette, becoming the youngest person to hold the position in the country. She subsequently founded the Nest Center for Journalism Innovation and Development, which works to support Mongolian media startups and freelancers and combat misinformation.
Gemini Cheng is a freelance journalist based in Hong Kong with deep experience in fact-checking and investigative journalism. She started her career as a journalist in 2012, joining the investigative reporting team at Ming Pao and i-Cable News, working across several platforms from print to broadcast to online media. Subsequently, she worked as a deputy editor at Initium Media and obtained a master’s degree in Laws in Human Rights at the University of Hong Kong.
Holly Chik is a reporter at the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, covering US-China relations, Chinese international relations, and economic development. She is also the Co-Vice President of AAJA-Asia’s Hong Kong subchapter. She previously served on the AAJA-Asia board as the student representative in 2019, and became a certified trainer shortly after.
Jagdishor Panday is the deputy chief sub-editor at the Kantipur Daily newspaper, the largest Nepali language newspaper in Nepal, and was formerly the Principal Correspondent for The Himalayan Times, the largest English-medium newspaper in NepaI. Having covered the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in January 2023 and the 78th UNGA at the UN headquarters in New York, he has experience reporting on foreign affairs, geopolitics, defense and political issues. He is also a part-time lecturer of Mass Communication and Journalism, teaching security agencies and students about media literacy.
Jin Ding is the Chief Executive Officer of Initium Media, one of the largest independent Chinese media outlets. Previously, she served as Chief of Staff and Operations at the Center for Public Integrity, one of the United States’ longest-standing nonprofit investigative news organizations. Prior, she worked as Program Manager for Associated Press and the International Women’s Media Foundation, and initiated diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. She is well-versed in nonprofit management, as well as working in both English and Chinese-medium outlets.
John Bergin is the regional head of Australia and New Zealand at Telum Media, and has more than 20 years of experience in media and communications. He has continuously worked at the intersection of technology, journalism, and content creation, serving as a digital and communications consultant for several newsrooms and firms in Australia. Previously, he held senior editorial roles with Sky News Australia and SBS, spearheading digital and technological transformations in their newsrooms.
Joydeep Dasgupta is the editor of News Sense, a digital Solutions Journalism initiative focused on development communication and fact checking. Though he is an accredited Defence Journalist since 2012, certified by the Ministry of Defence of India, he has experience reporting on a vast range of beats, from human rights to ESG to gender issues. He also works with visual media, having worked in TV broadcasting for nearly a decade and produced films in both corporate and creative capacities.
Jyoti Dwivedi is an Indian journalist with over 16 years of experience, and currently works as a correspondent and fact checker at the India Today Group. Her stories have previously been featured in the Poynter Institute’s newsletter. She has honed diverse OSINT techniques to monitor and debunk misinformation, unmasked fraudulent websites masquerading as government portals, and ensured the accuracy of official governmental information both in India and overseas. During her early career as a print journalist, she conducted sting operations that exposed illegal gender determination and abortion rackets.
Md Abul Kalam Azad has written on politics, violence, corruption, and violent extremism for over 20 years, publishing in The Daily Star, New Age, Dhaka Tribune, Deutsche Welle and Associated Press. He has spent years researching terrorism and radical movements, honing his skills in investigative work and imparting his knowledge as a trainer. As a current independent journalist, he has spent time researching and working in Singapore and Germany, and recently authored his first book on terrorism.
Mike Tanapon Raomanachai is a media trainer and news specialist at Cofact Thailand. He has trained journalists and newsrooms across Thailand and Southeast Asia in digital tools, digital safety and verification since 2019. He was formerly a journalist with more than 10 years of experience in technology, business, and lifestyle news.
Muhammad Ikhwan is a journalist at CNN Indonesia. With over 20 years of experience working in media in Indonesia, he possesses a wealth of knowledge on broadcast journalism, journalist ethics, and newsroom management. He also serves as a lecturer at several universities across Indonesia, teaching skills in media and journalism.
Neil Varcoe is an Australian writer, journalist and digital media executive. He has over 20 years of experience in digital publishing and business development, and was the world’s first publishing fellow at Google. Formerly, he held several key leadership roles in social media, serving as lead of editorial curation at Twitter Australia, head of social media at the ABC, and founder of social news start-up Storyful. He has also helped local, regional and small publishers transform their operations into digital businesses, as well as leading News Corp Australia’s shift to digital by building a national training program for its newsrooms.
Prabesh Subedi is a journalist, trainer and communication researcher based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He has accumulated 15 years of experience in journalism ranging from print to digital media, and is now also a trainer and published researcher in Nepal. A former president of Online Journalists Association Nepal from 2014 to 2017, Subedi currently leads the Digital Media Foundation. In addition, as a filmmaker, he directs and produces documentary films and visual content.
Prime Sarmiento is a journalist, currently working as a correspondent for China Daily in Hong Kong. She started as a commodities reporter in the Philippines covering agribusiness stories, and gradually found herself in roles all over Asia, from Brunei to Hong Kong to Singapore. She has since expanded her coverage and has covered several beats, including political economy, investigative journalism, and business.
Priti Salian is an independent journalist, researcher and creator of the newsletter, Reframing Disability. An accredited media trainer of Solutions Journalism and Gender Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, she specializes in disability inclusion. Additionally, she has reported on human rights, social justice, culture and development, in relation to disability, gender, global health, and education. She has worked from India, Germany and Uganda, publishing in The Guardian, BBC, NBC, The Lancet, The British Medical Journal, and more.
Qadaruddin Shishir is an editor in AFP’s Dhaka bureau who coordinates AFP Fact Check’s Bengali-language site. He previously was the editor of BOOM Live as well as the co-founder of BD FactCheck, Bangladesh’s first fact checking organization. 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 has also authored a ‘Fact Checking and Verification Handbook’ in Bengali.
Rajneesh Bhandari is the founder and editor-in-chief of the Nepal Investigative Multimedia Journalism Network (NIMJN) which produces investigative stories on social justice and accountability issues. His multimedia work on different issues has appeared in The New York Times, National Geographic, NPR, AJ+, Bloomberg, BBC Reel, and other outlets. He is a Fulbright Humphrey alumnus of the Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University and the recipient of the Themis Speak-up Award 2022.
Said Nazir is the Managing Editor and Director of Tribal News Network (TNN) in Pakistan. He established TNN in 2013 to deliver credible and balanced news to the Afghan border region, which often goes overlooked by mainstream media. As Director, he leads a network of 8 radio stations and digital outlets, and is involved in its planning and implementation. Beyond news delivery, he trains journalists, especially Afghan refugees and women, on topics such as mobile journalism, election reporting, fact-checking, media ethics, and media viability and safety.
Sameen Aziz is a journalist and fact checker at the IFCN-verified organization Soch Fact Check in Pakistan, and investigates misinformation in Pakistan’s media landscape. She also produces media content for Soch Videos, reporting on gender, climate change and digital safety. Previously, she was a writer at NewsRun, a Pakistani media startup, and a social media manager as well as content digitizer in the publishing industry.
Selina Cheng is a business reporter at the Wall Street Journal, based in Hong Kong, and currently covers major automobile companies operating in China. She previously worked as a TV producer at HK01 and reported for the Hong Kong Free Press, where she produced several high-profile investigative stories.
Shah Khalid has 13 years of experience in media, previously working as a producer and reporter for Intermedia, Pakistan and feature producer and reporter for the Raabta Consultant Islamabad Pakistan District Bajaur Project. He has also worked in radio, having reported for several radio networks in Pakistan, and writes regularly for the monthly environmental publications Ferozaan Karachi and Push Sweden. His work focuses on environmentalism, climate change, and agriculture, often in relation to tribal communities.
Soma Basu is an investigative journalist, and has covered issues of environmental justice, human rights, disasters and conflicts in the Indian subcontinent for over 15 years. She is the former India editor of the fact check division of Agence France-Presse (AFP), and works as a media literacy trainer with the Factshala Initiative in India. She has also lectured at various Indian universities in journalism, and has conducted several training workshops in India, Bhutan, and Bangladesh.
Sumaiya Ali is a journalist from India. She has worked as a journalism researcher at BBC News, producing the HardTalk shows focused on India and Pakistan, as well as chairing BBC India’s GWiN (Global Women In News), a network that supports and empowers women journalists in the region. As a trainer, she trains journalists on research, data verification and digital tools, in particular female journalists.
Su Myat Wai is a journalist and media trainer from Myanmar. She has over 20 years of experience working in local Burmese media, working as a consultant and technical lead for media development for media companies and civil society organizations. She now focuses on training journalists in Myanmar on fact-checking, digital tools, digital literacy, and responsible journalism.
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/