Biography

Biographical sketch of Shahid Shah

My first entry into journalism was in 1997, when I joined an evening daily Sindhi newspaper “Khadim-e-Watan” as staff reporter. After a period of ten days as freelance sub editor, one of two reporters in the daily left the job and I was asked to continue as a staff reporter.

After a few months, I became a staff reporter of morning daily of the same newspaper group and largest circulated Sindhi daily of Pakistan “Kawish”. I worked all the day. It was so difficult that my news editor at the previous newspaper had warned me not to leave “Khadim-e-Watan” as working at Kawish was challenging for journalists, as they work almost all day, more than 12 hours. I worked for 14 hours daily.

After work of almost a year, I joined daily Ibrat Hyderabad on desk as In-charge of interior pages. I headed two pages of the daily out of eight pages in those days. Ibrat was another daily of Sindhi language. I was with Ibrat at its Hyderabad office for a year than transferred at Karachi on my own will. I joined Karachi office as Bureau In-charge (head and reporter), since then I have continued as a reporter.

I joined English daily The News International (a morning daily newspaper) in 2004. Since then I have kept my association with The News only.

In 2006, I was awarded Daniel Pearl/Alfred Friendly Fellowship and I flew to Washington D.C. It was a six month program, which provided a chance to work at an American newsroom. I was placed at Wall Street Journal’s Washington DC Bureau.

I had been covering issues like politics, human rights, culture, government and business (stock markets etc.). Currently, I have developed my skills and expertise in fields like agriculture, water, fisheries, development and climate change.

I have also taught journalism and economics as a visiting faculty at a couple of private sector universities.

In 2015, I received a data journalism fellowship by Earth Journalism Network. This fellowship proved as my turning point to build my skills as a data journalist.