Lara Setrakian

Last updated
Lara Setrakian
Lara Setrakian.jpg
Setrakian in 2014
Born (1982-02-04) February 4, 1982 (age 41)
United States
Citizenship American
Education Harvard University, Horace Mann School
Occupation(s)Journalist, Digital Strategist, Entrepreneur
Notable credit(s)News Deeply; Bloomberg TV; ABC News; CNN; ForeignPolicy.com; Washington Post; BusinessInsider.com
Website https://www.newsdeeply.com/

Lara Setrakian (born February 4, 1982 in United States) is an Armenian American journalist, digital strategist and entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Executive Editor of News Deeply, a digital media company that builds single-topic platforms that provide journalistic reporting, expert analysis, dialogues and opportunities for knowledge exchange on the issues they cover. [1] Prior to founding News Deeply, she worked for five years as a Middle East correspondent for ABC News, Bloomberg Television, the International Herald Tribune, Business Insider and Monocle magazine, covering several major news events in the region like Iran’s election protests and the Arab Spring of 2011. [2] As a Middle East correspondent Setrakian covered uprisings, conflicts, politics and economics around the region. She was instrumental in Bloomberg Television’s live on-the-ground coverage of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. [3] [4] [5] Following the toppling of Tunisia's president Ben Ali during what became known as the Arab Spring, Setrakian arrived in Egypt before the January 25th protest and was reporting live from Tahrir Square when Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down. [6] While reporting on the rise of piracy off the horn of Africa, Lara was the first American to interview the new president of war-torn Somalia, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. [7]

Contents

A graduate of Harvard University, Setrakian is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum [8] and a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. [9] She was named one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business [10] and one of Marie Claire Magazine’s Women on Top. [11]

Her work at News Deeply was awarded the National Press Foundation’s Excellence in Online Journalism Award for 2013. [12]

In 2017 Setrakian delivered a TED talk on three ways to fix the news industry. [13] She gave an earlier talk for TEDxYerevan discussing her career as a Middle East foreign correspondent and five key lessons she learned along the way. [14] She has been a frequent speaker on the future of news as a public service, through delivery models that are designed for the digital age. [15]

In the wake of sexual misconduct allegations against men in the media industry, Setrakian came forward as one of several women who accused Mark Halperin of sexual harassment while they were working at ABC News, arguing that this kind of behavior is part of a bigger problem in the news industry that needs to be fixed. [16] [17]

Early life and education

Hailing from New Jersey and New York City, Setrakian attended the Elisabeth Morrow School and Horace Mann School in Riverdale, New York. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College with a degree in Government. [18] After Harvard, Setrakian worked as a business analyst with McKinsey & Company. Setrakian speaks Arabic, Armenian, English, French and Spanish, and has studied Persian and Portuguese.

Career

News Deeply

In 2012, Setrakian founded Syria Deeply, a platform covering the war in Syria, addressing a gap in in-depth media coverage of conflict zones and serving an underserved niche audience that was “thirsty to understand more.” [19] Receiving positive responses and great interest in single-issue sites, Setrakian launched a second platform, Ebola Deeply (archived), [20] addressing the West African Ebola virus epidemic. Since then more platforms covering geopolitical, health and environmental issues have been added to the News Deeply network, which has been called a “new model of impact journalism”. [21] As a fellow of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in 2014, Setrakian authored a landmark paper on vertical, or single-subject news sites a rising trend in digital publishing. [22] In her TED talk in January 2017, Setrakian made the case that some of the ideas she founded News Deeply on were relevant for the crisis-ridden news industry, describing journalism as “adult education” and advocating for embracing complexity “in order to make sense of a complex world.” [23] In an opinion piece for the Washington Post Setrakian spoke out on allegations of sexual harassment against political journalist Mark Halperin. She wrote about the systematic implications of such behavior and repercussions for the news industry, calling Halperin part of a bigger problem that needs to be fixed. [24] She was one of several women who had been harassed by him working at ABC News and were mentioned in a report by CNN. [25] In a subsequent interview with Judy Woodruff for PBS NewsHour she said, “I think there’s a generational shift. I think there’s a mindset shift” around workplace norms and sexual assault. [26] In September 2018, News Deeply laid off staff members and cut some of its publications including Oceans Deeply, Malnutrition Deeply, and Peacebuilding Deeply. In an email comment to Fast Company, Lara confirmed the changes and added that the company’s model “allows us to pop up and fold down thematic platforms. It’s always sad for us to see any of them go dark. Letting go of colleagues when that happens is the hardest part of my job as a CEO.” [27] In December 2018 she joined with a group of women journalists to create Press Forward, an initiative to change the culture of newsrooms at the local and national level, so that they are safe and fair for all reporters. [28]

ABC News

Setrakian has covered the Middle East extensively, filing from across the Arab world and Iran. Setrakian covered Iranian presidential election, 2009 digitally, cited by several key aggregation blogs during the aftermath. [29] She covered Lebanon’s violent unrest in May 2008 and reported from Saudi Arabia during the oil price crisis that summer. She filed a report on a $3 billion collection of modern masterpieces in the basement of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, and was the only network reporter with the US Navy’s counter-piracy Combined Task Force 151 when it caught its first band of suspected pirates in the Gulf of Aden. [30] [31] While on that assignment, Setrakian was the first American to interview the new president of war-torn Somalia, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. [32]

Before moving to the Middle East, Setrakian was a reporter for ABC News in New York where her reporting appeared on ABC News shows “Good Morning America,” “World News”,"This Week" and “Nightline.” [33] She covered high-profile trials and cases in the U.S., such as Duke Lacrosse Sex Scandal as well as exclusively interviewing the five Chinese men released from Guantanamo Bay detention camp in 2006. [34]

ABC New's Mid East Memo

Billed by ABC News as "weekly analysis and top stories in the world's hottest region, from ABC’s Lara Setrakian," [35] the blog covers background information on the Middle East region. Lara's use of multiple platforms: television, web, Twitter, and blogs was highlighted by Rachel Boehm. [36]

Bloomberg Television

Beginning as a contributor to Bloomberg Television while working with ABC News, Lara officially joined Bloomberg in early 2011. [37] She headlined Middle East coverage for Bloomberg during the Arab Spring, and covered its aftermath including the latest ramifications in Libya, Lebanon, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Bahrain. Notable coverage and interviews included Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, and Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. [38] [39]

Monocle

Contributing to Monocle Magazine and Monocle TV from the Middle East, she covers human interest stories for their global audience. [40]

Foreign Policy

Lara was a contributor to Foreign Policy's blog: Mideast Channel with articles on Lebanon, the impact of media on the Arab Spring and the economics of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. [41] [42] [43]

She was interviewed regarding the impact of Al Jazeera on the Arab Spring by Foreign Policy's Parag Khanna. [44]

Business Insider

She also contributed to Business Insider on Middle East business activities, political economy and global oil markets.

Awards and affiliations

In 2007, she received a fellowship from the Peter Jennings Project for Journalists and the Constitution part of the National Constitution Center. [45] Lara was named one of the top 9 most influential Young Professionals in Foreign Policy under 33 by The Diplomatic Courier [46] and made Foreign Policy's FP Twitterati 100 'A Who's who of the foreign-policy Twitterverse in 2011'. [47] She is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Fisk</span> English writer and journalist (1946–2020)

Robert Fisk was an English writer and journalist. He was critical of United States foreign policy in the Middle East, and the Israeli government's treatment of Palestinians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lara Spencer</span> American television journalist

Lara Christine Von Seelen is an American television presenter. She is best known for being the co-anchor for ABC's Good Morning America. She is also a correspondent for Nightline and ABC News. She was the host of the syndicated entertainment newsmagazine The Insider from 2004 to 2011 and was a regular contributor to CBS's The Early Show. She was the national correspondent for Good Morning America and spent several years as a lifestyle reporter for WABC-TV. She hosted Antiques Roadshow on PBS for the 2004 and 2005 seasons and Antiques Roadshow FYI, a spin-off of Antiques Roadshow, during 2005. She hosts the show Flea Market Flip on both HGTV and the Great American Country channel. In April 2018, she announced she would be only appearing on GMA three days a week to focus on her television producing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Halperin</span> American journalist

Mark Evan Halperin is an American journalist, television cable host, and commentator for the conservative Newsmax TV. Halperin previously had worked as the political director for ABC News, where he also served as the editor of the Washington, D.C., newsletter The Note. In 2010, Halperin joined MSNBC, becoming the senior political analyst and a contributor. Along with John Heilemann, Halperin served as co-managing editor of Bloomberg Politics. Halperin and Heilemann co-wrote Game Change and Double Down: Game Change 2012, were co-hosts of MSNBC and Bloomberg's With All Due Respect, and produced and co-starred with Mark McKinnon in Showtime's The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth, which followed the presidential candidates behind the scenes of their campaigns in the 2016 United States Presidential Election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Defterios</span>

John K. Defterios is an American journalist best known for his work at CNN. He was CNN Business Emerging Markets Editor on CNN International. He left the company in May 2021, after 35 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terry Moran</span> American journalist

Terry Moran is an American journalist, currently Senior National Correspondent at ABC News. Based in Washington, D.C., Moran covers national politics and policy, reporting from the Trump White House, the Supreme Court, and the campaign trail for all ABC News programs. Previously, Moran served as ABC's Chief Foreign Correspondent from 2013-2018; as co-anchor of the ABC News show Nightline from 2005-2013; and as Chief White House Correspondent from 1999-2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tony Jones (news journalist)</span> Australian journalist and TV presenter (born 1955)

Anthony William Jones is an Australian television news and political journalist, radio and television presenter and writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Engel</span> American journalist and author

Richard Engel is an American journalist and author who is the chief foreign correspondent for NBC News. He was assigned to that position on April 18, 2008 after serving as the network's Middle East correspondent and Beirut bureau chief. Before joining NBC in May 2003, Engel reported on the start of the 2003 war in Iraq for ABC News as a freelance journalist in Baghdad.

Sally Jane Sara AM, is an Australian journalist and TV presenter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barrie Dunsmore</span>

Barrie Dunsmore was a Canadian journalist who covered foreign affairs for ABC News, the American television network, for 30 years.

<i>Monocle</i> (brand) Lifestyle magazine

Monocle is a global affairs and lifestyle magazine, 24-hour radio station, website, retailer and media brand, produced by Winkreative Ltd. It was founded by Tyler Brûlé, a Canadian entrepreneur, Financial Times columnist, and founder of Wallpaper* magazine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Juju Chang</span> American television journalist

Hyunju "Juju" Chang is an American television journalist for ABC News, and is currently an anchor of Nightline. She has previously worked as a special correspondent and fill-in anchor for Nightline, and was also the news anchor for ABC News' morning news program Good Morning America from 2009 to 2011.

Octavia Nasr is a Lebanese-American Rhetoric scholar and author whose research focuses on Yoga's identity and ethical code and how they apply to journalism and other fields. She is a certified yoga instructor who teaches in the U.S. and India. She was a war correspondent for Lebanon's LBCI in the 1980's. She served in various positions at CNN for twenty years until her departure in 2010 following a controversial Twitter posting related to cleric Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah.

Cam Simpson is a London-based writer and journalist. He is currently the senior international correspondent for Bloomberg Businessweek in London, and Bloomberg News. Previously, he worked for The Wall Street Journal, with posts in the Middle East and Washington. and as a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune where he was responsible for covering US foreign policy and investigative projects in Washington and overseas.

Esra'a Al Shafei is a Bahraini civil rights activist, blogger, and the founder and executive director of Majal and its related projects, including CrowdVoice.org. Al Shafei is a senior TED Fellow, an Echoing Green fellow, and has been referred to by CNN reporter George Webster as "An outspoken defender of free speech". She has been featured in Fast Company magazine as one of the "100 Most Creative People in Business." In 2011, The Daily Beast listed Al Shafei as one of the 17 bravest bloggers worldwide. She is also a promoter of music as a means of social change, and founded Mideast Tunes, which is currently the largest platform for underground musicians in the Middle East and North Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Courtney C. Radsch</span> American journalist

Courtney C. Radsch is an American journalist, author and advocate for freedom of expression. She is the author of Cyberactivism and Citizen Journalism in Egypt: Digital Dissidence and Political Change and worked as the advocacy director for the Committee to Protect Journalists until 2021. She has written and been interviewed extensively about digital activism and social media in the Middle East since 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raghida Dergham</span> Lebanese-American journalist (born 1953)

Raghida Dergham is a Lebanese-American journalist based in Lebanon. She is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Beirut Institute and Columnist for Annahar Al Arabi and The National. She served as Columnist, Senior Diplomatic Correspondent, and New York Bureau Chief for the London-based Al-Hayat daily for 28 years. She is well known internationally as a Middle Eastern female journalist, and has received awards for her career achievements.

Al Jazeera Media Network, endowed by the Government of Qatar, is one of the world's largest news organizations. It provides extensive news coverage through 80 bureaus on a variety of media platforms in several languages, including Arabic and English. Al Jazeera has a large audience, but the organization has been criticized for its alleged involvement in controversies ranging from slanted journalism to anti-Hindu bias and anti-Israel bias.

Syria Deeply is a single issue news website on the Syrian Conflict cofounded in December 2012 by Lara Setrakian and Azeo Fables. It is a collaboration with Ushahidi, freelance correspondents in the Middle East and other collaborators. It synthesizes information on the Syria conflict into a single website with sub headings covering issues regarding the Syrian conflict, interactive graphics, Google hangouts and video content. It has been compared to a next generation blog according to Gigaom that was ahead of the explanatory news trend active in 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephanie Sy</span> American journalist

Stephanie Sy is an American television news anchor and reporter for the PBS NewsHour.

News Deeply is an online journalism and technology company, based in New York City, specializing in single-issue news websites and building online databases of stakeholders. Its flagship site, Syria Deeply, was founded by Lara Setrakian and Azeo Fables in 2012 to cover the Syrian Civil War. On May 15, 2018, News Deeply merged Syria Deeply into the broader Peacebuilding Deeply. Since 2012, the company built and operated seven other sites with similar single-issue formats: Malnutrition Deeply, Oceans Deeply, Refugees Deeply, Water Deeply, Women's Advancement Deeply, Arctic Deeply and Ebola Deeply.

References

  1. ↑ "News Deeply website".
  2. ↑ "News Deeply Team". Archived from the original on 2018-06-21. Retrieved 2018-01-15.
  3. ↑ "Lara Setrakian bio Bloomberg". www.bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  4. ↑ "Lara Setrakian bio ABC News". abcmedianet.com. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  5. ↑ "Lara Setrakian's move to Bloomberg". www.mediabistro.com. Archived from the original on 2011-09-18. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  6. ↑ "Lara Setrakian Tweets from Tahrir". peterjenningsproject.blogspot.com. 7 February 2011. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  7. ↑ "Interview with Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed". abcnews.go.com. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  8. ↑ "Lara Setrakian at World Economic Forum". weforum.org.
  9. ↑ "Lara Setrakian - Concordia". concordia.net.
  10. ↑ "Lara Setrakian, Most Creative People 2013 - Fast Company". www.fastcompany.com.
  11. ↑ "Top Women of 2012 awards". www.marieclaire.com. Retrieved 2012-09-12.
  12. ↑ "Excellence in Online Journalism awards". National Press Foundation.
  13. ↑ "3 ways to fix a broken news industry - Lara Setrakian at TEDNYC". ted.com. 15 February 2017.
  14. ↑ "TEDxYerevan - Lara Setrakian - Five Things I've Learned as a Foreign Correspondent". youtube.com.
  15. ↑ "TALK: Lara Setrakian on the future of news and bringing meaningful stories into the public consciousness". vimeo.com.
  16. ↑ "I'm one of Mark Halperin's accusers. He's part of a bigger problem we need to fix". www.washingtonpost.com.
  17. ↑ "Former ABC journalist says Mark Halperin allegations reflect harmful female objectification in TV news". pbs.org. 30 October 2017.
  18. ↑ "Harvard Arab Alumni Association Conference". harvardmagazine.com. September 2009. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  19. ↑ "Lara Setrakian: Single-story sites like Syria Deeply have lessons to offer the rest of the news business". niemanlab.org.
  20. ↑ "Ebola Deeply Website".
  21. ↑ "With News Deeply, Lara Setrakian has created a new model of impact journalism". techcrunch.com.
  22. ↑ Setrakian, Lara; Nolan, Kristin. "Seeking the Single-Subject News Model". Tow Center for Digital Journalism. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  23. ↑ "3 ways to fix a broken news industry". TED.com. 15 February 2017. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  24. ↑ Setrakian, Lara (October 27, 2017). "I'm one of Mark Halperin's accusers. He's part of a bigger problem we need to fix". Washington Post. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  25. ↑ Darcy, Oliver (October 26, 2017). "Five women accuse journalist and 'Game Change' co-author Mark Halperin of sexual harassment". CNN Money. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  26. ↑ "Former ABC journalist says Mark Halperin allegations reflect harmful female objectification in TV news". PBS. Oct 30, 2017. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  27. ↑ "News Deeply has laid off staff members and is cutting some of its publications". 4 September 2018.
  28. ↑ "Press Forward".
  29. ↑ Mackey, Robert (2009-06-20). "Lara Setrakian Tweets on Iran elections". thelede.blogs.nytimes.com. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  30. ↑ "Lara Setrakian's coverage of Art". abcnews.go.com. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  31. ↑ "Anti Piracy Task Force". abcnews.go.com. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  32. ↑ "Interview with Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed". abcnews.go.com. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  33. ↑ "Obama in India". abcnews.go.com. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  34. ↑ "Lara Setrakian bio ABC News". abcmedianet.com. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  35. ↑ "Mid East Memo". blogs.abcnews.com. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  36. ↑ "ABC News' new breed of foreign correspondents". rachelboehm.com. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  37. ↑ "Lara Setrakian's move to Bloomberg". www.mediabistro.com. Archived from the original on 2011-09-18. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  38. ↑ Smith, Grant (2011-08-23). "Oil Shock and Libya". www.bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  39. ↑ "Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh". www.youtube.com. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  40. ↑ "Hikers in Iran". www.monocle.com. Archived from the original on 2012-09-05. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  41. ↑ "Is the Lebanonization of Iraq Complete". mideast.foreignpolicy.com. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  42. ↑ "Abu Dhabi Formula One". mideast.foreignpolicy.com. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  43. ↑ "Political Islam's war for talent". mideast.foreignpolicy.com. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  44. ↑ "Lara Setrakian on Mideast Uprisings, Arab Satellite TV, and the Next Regimes to Fall". mideast.foreignpolicy.com. Archived from the original on 2011-05-17. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  45. ↑ "Lara Setrakian Tweets from Tahrir". peterjenningsproject.blogspot.com. 7 February 2011. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  46. ↑ "Top 9-Lara Setrakian". www.diplomaticourier.com. Retrieved 2011-09-12.
  47. ↑ "FP Twitterati 100". www.foreignpolicy.com. Retrieved 2011-09-12.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.