Hanaa' Tameez is a writer and editor based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is currently a staff writer for the Nieman Journalism Lab, where she covers innovation in the news media industry. She has experience working for newspapers, magazines, startups, and independent news outlets in the United States and Mexico in both English and Spanish.
Work Experience
Report and write stories about business development and innovation in the news media industry. Manage and publish content to Nieman Lab’s social media accounts.
Edit daily email newsletter Today in Latin America, covering North America, Central America, and the Caribbean. Copyedit and fact check email newsletter Foreign Bodies about immigrant and refugee mental health experiences in the United States.
Taught the university’s first-ever Foundations of Journalism course, in which students receive comprehensive, rigorous grounding in the foundational concepts and underlying practices of journalism, adapted to the modern age.
Guided high school student journalists through pitching, reporting, and writing stories about climate change and environmental concerns in New York City. Edited stories for tone, clarity, and structure. Taught students traditional and social media sourcing methods.
Edit and produce five daily newsletters for local news outlets The New Tropic, Bridgeliner, The Evergrey, Pulptown and The Incline. Line edit and post web stories and sponsored content to corresponding websites.
Pitched, reported and wrote original stories in English and Spanish about race, culture and social equity in Tarrant County. Shot, produced and edited original videos for multiple platforms. Managed Electionland project to monitor county voting issues during 2018 midterm election.
Selected to work in the Mexico City bureau as inaugural Marie Colvin Fellow. Researched, reported and wrote stories about political and social issues in Mexico. Translated interviews from Spanish to English.
Side Projects
I mentor two summer interns at local Gannett newspapers. Every week we discuss highs and lows, story ideas, and reporting challenges.
The Objective publishes reporting, first-person commentary, and reported essays on how journalism has misrepresented or excluded specific communities in coverage, as well as how newsrooms have treated staff from those communities. As an advisory board member, I offer feedback and advice so the staff can better pursue its mission.
Writing
Disagreements between the LA Times and its Guild over seniority protections ended in more than 60 journalists of color being laid off.
LinkedIn has been experimenting with newsletters as a way for individuals and companies to connect with readers. There are more than 143,000 newsletters on the platform, with over 500 million subscribers. At least 150 news publishers send newsletters out regularly, said Keren Baruch, LinkedIn’s director of product.
Jewish Currents, a nonprofit digital and quarterly print magazine reporting from a Jewish left lens, has gained more than 1,000 paying subscribers since October 7. The publication is sending out more frequent editions of its newsletters, creating more posts on Instagram, and publishing first-person dispatches from Palestinians in Gaza living through the current violence.
I talked to 13 publishers around the world about how they’re using Channels. They stressed it’s too soon to define an official Channels strategy, especially since WhatsApp doesn’t offer much in the way of metrics. Still, they shared some of what they’re seeing early on.
Taylor Lorenz, who is a columnist at The Washington Post, and I chatted about the role women played in building the internet as we know it, how the news industry covers (and overlooks) major cultural shifts, the loss of Twitter (now X), and why she thinks the internet is our “default reality.”
Dr. Meredith Clark, Tracie Powell, and I discussed funders and publishers, the challenges of studying funding to BIPOC news outlets, and how they’d distribute $500 million to local news.
Radio Chilango, launched on August 28, is the newest wing of Chilango, a news and culture magazine covering Mexico City.
Sofía Terrile, an economics reporter for TN (Todo Noticias), one of Argentina’s leading news channels, is one journalist using Instagram broadcast channels to share her work, disseminate credible information, and pull back the curtain on her process.
Pamplonews is the only news outlet in Spain and Portugal that operates exclusively on WhatsApp, according to Iberifier, a media research and fact-checking organization that tracks news outlets in the Iberian Peninsula.
The “De Los” section's name challenges a phrase in Spanish that many first- and second-generation Latinos are familiar with: “ni de aquí, ni de allá,” which means “from neither here nor there.” “De Los” is short for “de los dos lados,” meaning “from both sides.”
Each 15- to 20-minute episode includes two to three in-depth explanations and discussions of major news stories and their impact on Latin America, then goes over a few other headlines.
Pablo Valdivia spent eight years at BuzzFeed as a staff writer and as the senior Latinx culture editor, helping launch the company’s sub-brand, Pero Like, that creates creative video and social media content for bilingual Latinos in the U.S. Now, he’s focused on bringing NPR’s journalism to Latinos on all platforms, including radio, online, podcasting, and social media.
Demócrata aims to provide news consumers in Spain with data-based journalism that helps to holds politicians accountable.
Mafindo has a core team of nine people, with thousands of volunteers across Indonesia helping conduct trainings, fact-check, and get more members of the public connected with the organization’s work.
In November 2022, El País launched its first reading club. In the first five months, the club grew to more than 1,100 members scattered mostly throughout Spain and Latin America.
OptOut aims to be a daily news app “100% free from corporate media narratives.”
9 Millones is a publishing and crowdfunding platform for journalists looking to investigate stories about Puerto Rico.
Al Día launched in 2003 as the first Spanish-language newspaper in Dallas, publishing five days a week with a circulation of 40,000. Managing editor Alfredo Carbajal has led the paper since it started. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s La Estrella was once Al Día’s stiffest competition, but ceased printing its weekly newspaper in 2021.
Sahan Journal developed Tani waa su’aashayda after a year of listening sessions with immigrant, refugee, and non-English-speaking communities across Minnesota.
New Lines Magazine's mission is to serve audiences that want to read long-form, narrative journalism with all of its complicated, messy, and tangled threads.
Honolulu Civil Beat announced that it would host pop-up newsrooms at public libraries across the state, bringing groups of staffers to work work from the libraries. The hope was that it would give Hawaii residents a chance to learn about how Civil Beat works, and let Civil Beat staffers learn about issues important to communities around the state.
In the aftermath of a chaotic election, one news publisher in Berlin partnered with a game design agency and public libraries to show the city’s residents there are ways to get involved in politics beyond voting.
The Toronto Star began using data from the Toronto Police Service to publish stories about break-and-enters across the city, using data from the Toronto Police Service.
A book by researchers at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy documents how memes and the online communities that produce them sow disinformation and erode trust in the government and the mainstream media.
Hell Gate — named after the steel arch bridge over the East River that connects Queens and Randalls and Wards Islands — first started publishing in May 2022. Though NYC has more journalists than anywhere else in the U.S., some feel the five boroughs themselves are under covered.
Chilango wanted to serve people of all gender identities by adopting inclusive, nonbinary language. Adopting inclusive language proved to be a learning experience, but also an editorial and linguistic challenge for the newsroom.
On August 1, the news site Richland Source in Ohio made obituaries free to publish on its website, giving its readers affordable and accessible way to grieve their losses.
HS is the only subscription national newspaper in Finland. Here’s how it gets readers to subscribe.
Within a week, the survey had 445 responses, with 82% of respondents saying they were in favor of the deal, as long as The Continent maintained its editorial independence.
“Tell the story without the explanatory commas, as if you’re telling to the person you want to be telling the story to.”
If you’re running a news outlet and having a hard time getting your readers to pay for your work, here’s an idea: Turn a back room into a liquor store.
Lokal, a location-based community information app in India, experimented with monetizing shoutouts and hyperlocal classified ads. It earned them $60,000 in March.
Dan Runcie noticed that hip-hop artists, a majority of whom are Black, weren’t given the same level of coverage, credit, or praise for their business accomplishments in mainstream media. After graduating from business school and working in education technology for a few years, Runcie started Trapital in the spring of 2018.
Nana aba Duncan will be the Carty Chair for Diversity, Inclusion and Journalism at the Carleton University School of Journalism and Communication. It’s a new role at Carleton (whose journalism school, launched in 1945, is the oldest in Canada) and one of just a handful of such positions at journalism schools in North America.
The wire, run via Substack, helps student reporters share knowledge and reporting.
Subtext launched in 2019 under Alpha Group, the in-house tech and media incubator owned by media company Advance. Mike Donoghue, the co-founder and CEO of Subtext, said it was developed to give people a way to build meaningful relationships with their audiences.
Anam Khan first started the NewsRun to help other Pakistanis living abroad keep up with the news, but quickly found that people back home needed her to make sense of what’s happening in the country, too.
Ome Khan's live matchmaking show gives people a chance to showcase their best selves. But she doesn't let them go without asking a few tough questions.
Many Kashmiris still prefer physical newspapers. But as the news there changes faster than anyone can keep up, the transition to digital is speeding up, too.
South Asian community news publications have existed in the United States for decades now. The Juggernaut tries to publish a range of stories — from pieces about anti-blackness to buying Indian mangoes in the West — that will resonate with generations of South Asians.
“Grownups, we have our various coping mechanisms and ways of processing this strange new reality. We have our Zoom calls and our alcohol and our memes. The kids don’t have those tools.”
From high school to the pros, the games that filled sports sections have nearly all been called off. “We don’t have a guidebook on how to cover sports when sports aren’t being played.”
The New York Times, BuzzFeed, HuffPost, El País, and others have all retrenched from the country in various ways recently. But Business Insider sees potential in reaching younger, upwardly mobile Mexicans.
I took a deep dive into Texas' physician shortage problem and the solution at work.
With stand-up gaining fans in the region, Netflix released 15 Spanish-language specials in 2018.
Five people told the Star-Telegram that they believe they were barred entrance to the bar, or saw someone denied entrance, because of their race when bouncers used selective enforcement of the dress code.
Surging homicide levels put heat on President Enrique Peña Nieto, as early success fades.
A poor showing in Brazil has fans wondering why their athletes can’t manage more medals than Moldova; a ‘gold medal for excuses.’
Speaking
I appeared on this podcast episode to talk about the developments of artificial intelligence in the news industry and its pros and cons.
On this Redacciones5G podcast, I discussed recent examples of how local news outlets embrace innovation and artificial intelligence, and about how I find stories to report on for Nieman Lab.
I spoke to Professor Wasim Ahmad's Journalism and Diversity class about my career as a woman journalist of color in the news industry and the evolution and challenges of diversity, equity, and inclusion in newsrooms.
On this panel discussion, I talked about how implementing artificial intelligence in newsrooms can impact a news outlet's trust with its communities.
I discussed issues with staffers at Insider Inc. related to race, identity, and racism in U.S. journalism, based on my story from March 2022: niemanlab.org/2022/03/americ…
I spoke to Amanda Bright's class about about the benefits and challenges of working on this beat, particularly when I am part of the media itself.
I spoke to Katina Paron's journalism class about my job at Nieman Lab, how it fits into the landscape of other news organizations, and my career path that got me to where I am today.
I spoke to Professor Barbara Selvin's business of journalism class at Stony Brook University about how journalists are reckoning with old interpretations of objectivity in covering current events. I also discussed how I started my career and gave students advice as they enter the job market.
I moderated a panel discussion that provided a safe environment for early career journalists to ask questions around career development as an Asian American and Pacific Islander.
I delivered the keynote speech on starting a career in a turbulent news industry at The Next Edition, an annual student journalism conference hosted by the Daily Free Press at Boston University.
I was a panelist during a discussion on covering race and identity during the Trump era. I shared my experiences covering communities of color and marginalized communities in Fort Worth and Tarrant County, one of the most conservative areas in the country.
Education
M.A. in Spanish-language journalism.
Double major in Journalism and Spanish Language & Literature