About Us
Action Beyond Headlines is a diverse, multicultural media organization that taps into a network of journalists and communities from around the world to explore issues of global concern. Our team of journalists focuses on wicked problems like climate change, public protest, immigration, wealth inequality and others that bind us all yet affect us through situated political and cultural contexts. Our journalism ethos is ‘glocal’- we tell stories of international concern but with the objective of inspiring local engagement and action, which while aggregated, leads to global impact.
We strongly believe that the best way to spark civic engagement around important social issues is to 1) gather ideas and lived experiences from communities on the ground, 2) bring those ideas together in a shared, deliberative space constituted by diverse individuals to explore trends, connections and strategies for making progressive change, and 3) return to communities with new insights, ideas and avenues for civic engagement delivered through dynamic storytelling and a diversity of platforms.
We believe in slow journalism and prefer sticking with an issue in order to explore its complexities and nuances. Conventional practices of ‘breaking news’ does not allow a concerted effort to affect change. Each month, our team selects one issue to report on. We hold focus groups, town halls and community outreach initiatives in our listening labs around the world with our network of correspondents and independent media partners, through which we gather diverse human experiences and ideas. A representative from each country joins the newsroom to share data and evidence, and we hold conversations about the connecting threads between progressive actors and groups and the best practices for sparking civic engagement and creating social change.
Our Team
Jon Elbaz
A graduate student at Emerson College, where he is developing a thesis around transforming journalism education. He attended the Salzburg Academy as a undergraduate in 2012, and returned to Salzburg Global as a communications intern in 2014. He previously worked for the Montgomery Sentinel and POLITICO, and has a bachelor's from the University of Maryland.
Delfina Arambillet
Studying journalism in Pontificia Universidad Católica Santa María de los Buenos Aires. She has been working at the Media Laboratory at her University. She and her team have created Switcher, a programme broadcasted in social media. In addition, she is hosting a radio show that focuses on politics and international issues.
Reid Jowers
A fourth-generation Longhorn from Beaumont, Texas; Reid Jowers is currently a rising junior at Moody College of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. A member of University Honors Dean's List, Reid is also an active member of the Society of Professional Journalists, Phi Alpha Delta-Pre Law Fraternity, Alpha Lambda Delta Honor Society and Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity. For the past two years, Reid has hosted a weekly radio show at KVRX showcasing a broad range of music genres.
Surya Harikrishnan
Organized the Bangalore Literature Festival, India's largest community-funded literary conclave, since its inception in 2012. He is the founding curator of the Under 25 Lit Fest and was on the Advisory Board of TEDx. He recently organized 'Writing Across Borders'- a Symposium on globalizing the creative writing programme, for Ashoka University in collaboration with the University of Chicago. In 2016, he was the youngest speaker at the Times Litfest, Mumbai.
Rana Tabbara
A student perusing her B.A in Multimedia Journalism at the Lebanese American University. In her first year, Rana worked as a researcher for 5 months in a well-known T.V station in Lebanon (MTV). After that, she landed an Internship in a Radio station (Radio Liban), where she continues to host and produce her own show after a year. Rana also participated in many journalsim workshops, from Al-Fanar workshop about covering researches, to ARIJ's workshop for combating fake news in the Arab world, and Bellingcats online verification workshop.
Kinda El Zoghby
A university student working towards becoming a Journalist and expected to graduate fall 2019 from the Lebanese American University of Beirut. She expects travelling to Salzburg this summer to be a very interesting experience, especially since she loves traveling and exploring new countries with her friends. She has spent many hours in the Journalism Lab observing journalism students and doctors working, to give her a better idea of what she could be looking forward in the future.
Akshay Kulkarni
A Journalism student at Bournemouth University, originally from India. He has participated, and moderated, at multiple Model UN conferences in his home country. At Bournemouth, he has worked on multiple projects including starting a personal blog, writing about transgender rights, and an interactive documentary on smuggling. He has had work experience at broadcaster Sky News.
Conor Lum
A junior Computer Science major with a Math minor at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD). He is interested in databases and algorithms and has completed research in cybersecurity with the director of cybersecurity of UMD. He has worked at pHin, a small Silicon Valley company that produces IoT pool monitors. He helped improve the product with data analysis. He has also developed a website for a highschool's foundation with a small team.
Ruben Cuevas
Played ice hockey in Canada and lived there for three years. He ended his career due to an injury and started his first business, Pets in the Sky, a crematory service for pets that now operates in Mexico City and Cuernavaca. After the success of this business, he attended university and started two restaurants, which now are in Mexico City. He loves sports and almost every outdoor activity.
Deborah Oliveros
An M.A. candidate ('19) in Communication, Culture & Technology at Georgetown University. Her focus is on issues of media representation of women and other minorities. Specifically, the lack of representation void of stereotypes in popular culture media and its political impact. Prior to CCT, Deborah got her B.A. in Mass Communications in her home country, Venezuela, where she also attended film school.
Mohamad Khoudari
A junior at Lebanese American University majoring in political science and international affairs.
María del Carmen Martínez López
A Mexican Communications Student from Universidad Iberoamericana, who has been working to become a Cultural Manager. She started as an artist playing the piano, acting and writing, but over the last 6 years she has dedicated her studies to understand publics and the different ways of sharing contents through events, interactive platforms and media.
Advisors
Dr. Christopher Harris
Hailing from central New Jersey, Dr. Christopher Harris earned his B.A. in Psychology from Rutgers University in 2001. He then attended Cornell University's graduate program in Africana Studies, receiving his Master's in Professional Studies (M.P.S.) in 2004. After taking several years off from school to run an innovative after-school program for inner-city middle school children in his home town, Dr. Harris began his doctoral studies at the University of Miami, graduating with a Ph.D. in Communication Studies in 2010. He currently serves as an Associate Professor of Communication and Department Chair of Social Sciences for Nevada State College's, School of Liberal Arts & Sciences. Dr. Harris's research interests include fine-de-siècle rap music and neo-soul, critical pedagogy, media portrayals of ethnicity/race, and the relationship/interplay between power and discourse in contemporary society. Dr. Harris has published in the Journal of International Women's Studies and Communication Teacher. He has also earned top paper awards at both the Broadcast Educator's Association and the National Communication Association annual conventions. For fun, he enjoys travelling, reading, and the Las Vegas nightlife.
Dr. Megan Fromm
Megan Fromm, PhD, is an assistant professor at Colorado Mesa University. She is also the Educational Initiatives Director for the Journalism Education Association. http://www.jea.org/ Fromm received her doctorate in 2010 from the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. Her dissertation analyzed how news media frame student First Amendment court cases, particularly those involving freedom of speech and press. Her work and teaching centers on media education, scholastic journalism, media literacy and media and democracy. She has also worked as a journalist and high school journalism teacher and regularly teaches at journalism education workshops around the country. As a working journalist, Fromm won numerous awards, including the Society of Professional Journalists Sunshine Award and the Colorado Friend of the First Amendment Award. Her first co-authored textbook, Student Journalism and Media Literacy, was released in November 2014. Fromm has recently authored chapters on media literacy pedagogy and social media and youth empowerment. She also writes for PBS' MediaShift website, EducationShift, on topics such as media and journalism education.
