Writing on Human Rights Violations with Zuha Siddiqui

After the successful conclusion of our Storytelling Basics series, we decided to continue bringing you outstanding professionals to discuss the work that they do in these strange, absurd and – dare we say it once again – unprecedented times.

In our next event, Zuha Siddiqui will present the work she has done writing on human rights, our changing environment and technology. She will also be discussing the implications of censorship and security when writing on human rights violations, particularly pertaining to the safety of her sources.

Trained in New York and based in her native Pakistan, Zuha’s work has appeared in Foreign Policy, Vice, Slate, BuzzFeed News and more.

Zuha’s reporting has been supported by fellowships from the South Asian Journalism Association and One World Media. She was a 2020 journalism fellow with FASPE, Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics.

The session will take place on July 31 via Zoom, from 1-2:30pm BST, and is open to anyone, everywhere. We particularly want to encourage participation from people who may be structurally marginalised and/or are struggling to break into journalism.

This workshop will seek to:

• Introduce participants to broad concerns in human rights reporting, including: the choices journalists face — such as choosing principle characters and voices; the nature of truth, and duty of care; the political impact of reportage and questions of sensationalism and bias.
• Deconstruct the steps professional journalists undertake in researching, writing, pitching and publishing a story.
• Address the impact of the internet, mobile devices, and social media in human rights reporting and what this means for the production and consumption of news.
• Address what journalism, at its best, might be able to accomplish, as well as to gauge the harm it can do at its worst.

The entry fee* stands on a sliding scale between £3.75 and £11: you decide how much you can pay, no questions asked. We welcome a very diverse range of participants, coming from different social and geographical places, and for whom the ticket price will mean something different. This is a high quality event where our profit margin is small, and we want our participants to be able to recognise this and support us in whatever way they can.