Sophia Qureshi: Journalist, Fighter for Integrity and Expression

Sophia Qureshi has held positions at the United Nations, CNN, Al Jazeera, and most recently as Director of Communications for The Center for Public Integrity (CPI), establishing major journalism partnerships between the commercial and nonprofit worlds. She is also a founder of Subcontinental Drift — a nationwide South Asian American coalition that fosters and provides a supportive and collaborative community for creative expression, engagement, and positive social change. She is a Political Science graduate of the University of Georgia, and has a Master’s from Georgetown University in International Development and Communications. This fall she will be an affiliate Nieman journalism fellow at Harvard University.

What experiences lead you to your career path?

There are a few — -

Being half- Kashmiri is originally what sparked my interest in media. From an early age I thought it was odd that I would hear stories of war and conflict in our immediate circle of family and friends and that I wouldn’t see those stories reflected in the mainstream media. I wanted to understand this thing called “media” and play a part in changing it for the better by highlighting untold stories.

I was in college when the 9/11 attacks happened. There was a lot of misunderstanding at the time about Muslims and about certain Muslim-majority countries like Pakistan. Being half Pakistani, I felt both driven and obliged to educate people about my background and to show them a side of my culture and religion that wasn’t dominated by the scary things they were seeing in the media. I not only enjoyed doing Pakistani cultural and education events, I felt right and good when I was doing them.

I interned at the CNN bureau in New Delhi when I was in grad school. I loved the pace of news and I loved being out and talking to different types of people — from a street dentist in Delhi to former child camel jockeys in Lahore to local government officials. After that internship, I knew this was the industry I wanted to be in for a good stretch of my career.

How did WLP influence your career trajectory?

I was in DC for WLP in the summer of 2002. 15 years later, some of the friends I made that summer are still some of my closest friends. I loved being around other South Asians who were politically conscious, and who felt driven to make a contribution to society via non traditional (at the time) paths. At the end of the summer, I knew I needed to come back to DC. 2 years later, I came back to DC for grad school and now have been here for almost 13 years!

How has your South Asian identity shaped your career?

Being South Asian, the struggles of my relatives in Kashmir and Pakistan are just as real as present as the struggles of people living around me in DC. That’s partly what made me interested in international news in the first place — I wanted to help tell the stories of people who seem very different from us and help to bring people together by connecting through stories.

Who are your role models?

My mom and my dad are my biggest role models. Some people I’m inspired by — — Bob Dylan, Michael Stipe, Arundhati Roy, Dalai Lama. Generally people who speak truth to power! Oh — my 3 year old Azad- he definitely speaks truth to power!

Given today’s political climate towards journalism worldwide, what do you think is the biggest challenge for journalists and what do you think the future of journalism looks like?

In an era of information gluttony and short attention spans, the biggest challenge is to get a critical mass of people tuning into smart and serious journalism. It will be a lot harder for our society to improve if we don’t have solid information, and an agreement of what the facts of our world are (ie climate change, war..).

It’s hard to see into the future of journalism — but I think with the democratization of information we will see more and more diverse voices reflected in our media landscape and increasing fragmentation in our news consumption caused by people curating their own news feeds.

What do you hope to achieve in the next 10 years?

I hope to have published a book within the next 10 years!

What are you currently reading or watching?

I’m reading Half a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi.