Journalism trainingConsultants

Amira Fahmy

Amira Fahmy started work as a radio journalist at Radio Cairo in 1968 where she worked as a news editor, news analyst and presenter. She has covered several presidential trips abroad including former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's visits to the U.S, Russia, Germany and Belgium. Amira has given training courses in journalism and translation and also worked at the Spanish National Radio And Television as an announcer for the Arabic service. Amira started work with Reuters in 1988 as a news sub-editor, leaving in 2005 to pursue other interests. She now works as a teacher of journalism and translation at Helwan University Faculty of Arts Cairo for Thomson Reuters while acting as a freelancer for various media sources in Cairo including the El Masaa Newspaper.

B.Y. Wong

B.Y. Wong was editor and head of Reuters Chinese News for seven years, leading one of Reuters biggest non-English language editorial desks with 70+ journalists spreading out in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei and Toronto. In a varied career in the worlds of business and journalism, he also acted as moderator for MacroChina, a Chinese government think-tank under the country’s state planner. He was regional director of the Hong Kong Tourism Association in charge of promoting Hong Kong’s tourist industry, and was also director of Jardine Fleming (China) Investment Service, one of the biggest local investment banks/brokerage houses in Hong Kong.

He currently teaches the post-graduate programme at the School of Journalism & Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Belinda Goldsmith

Belinda Goldsmith is the Global Head of Editorial Learning, managing a team providing training for Reuters’ 3,000 journalists in writing skills, financial expertise, multi-media, and a range of other journalism topics. Ethics workshops are also a core part of editorial training at Reuters. Belinda joined Reuters from Papua New Guinea in 1994 and has worked for the company in Australia, Sweden, the United States and England as well as in a list of countries on short-term assignments, covering commodity markets, equities, political and general news, and lifestyle and entertainment.

Diadie Ba

Diadie Ba is a long-established journalist based in Senegal who prior to joining Reuters in 1988 worked for news organizations including the BBC, CNN and New York-based magazine Institutional Investor. He has covered a string of elections and other stories including the plight of refugees across West and Central Africa, and has also worked as a cameraman and a producer. Diadie has taught courses for Inter Press Services, on how to address human rights, development and environmental issues in Africa, and carries out training for the Thomson Reuters Foundation in West Africa.

Ghaida Ghantous

Ghaida Ghantous has nine years experience as a correspondent at Reuters, writing on topics ranging from the energy and financial sectors in the Gulf region to political and security issues in the Middle East. During her time as an energy correspondent, she led and participated in team coverage of conferences and ministerial meetings in the Middle East and abroad, including policy-setting sessions of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. As security correspondent, she reported on major security events in assignments across the Gulf, including militant attacks on foreigners in Saudi Arabia in 2004 and Kuwait in 2003. She also produced general news stories on moves towards greater democracy, human rights and economic development in the Middle East as well as lifestyle features. A Lebanese national, Ghaida speaks fluent English and Arabic.

Heba Kandil

Heba Kandil has more than ten years of media and communications experience in the Middle East, working for international organisations and global news agencies such as Reuters, NBC TV, Associated Press TV and the UN World Food Programme. Heba, who is a fluent English and Arabic speaker, joined Reuters in Cairo in 2002 and worked in the Reuters’ Gulf Bureau based in Dubai to cover major financial and political news stories including the 2003 US-led war in Iraq, a rise in militant violence in the Gulf region, a growth in the number of IPOs, booming stock market activity and mega construction projects that were financed by a surplus in oil profits. She moved back to Cairo in 2007 as public information officer and head of the public information unit for the UN World Food Programme for the Middle East, East Europe and Caucasus, where she was also the spokesperson.

Heba is currently a journalism and media trainer for Thomson Reuters Foundation and a freelance editor based in Cairo.

Lisa Essex

Lisa Essex has been a journalist for 18 years, working for some of the world's leading news organizations, such as Reuters and Bloomberg Business News. During her varied career, she has undertaken such roles as oil reporter, radio presenter, derivatives correspondent, TV bureau chief and Training Editor. Her specializations include financial and business news, television, energy reporting and journalism training, and she was bureau chief for Reuters Television in New York on the day of the destruction of the World Trade Center. Lisa developed the Thomson Reuters Foundation Training of Trainers scheme, and was responsible for the Reuters Graduate Trainee scheme for six years. She has trained trainers from more than 20 countries, running schemes for major NGOs, foundations, and media organizations. She also trains the Thomson Reuters Foundation's own trainers, before they are deployed to clients around the world.

Lisa is now a freelance journalist, editor and trainer.

Malak Ghobrial

Malak Ghobrial is Editor in Charge of Reuters Arabic Sports Service, which covers the world's major sporting events as well as games in Middle East countries, supported by a network of Arab reporters. Before joining Reuters, Malak worked as a reporter and producer for BBC Arabic Service in Cairo and was responsible for producing a daily sports programme. Malak has vast experience in covering big events for Reuters Arabic desk such as the Olympics in 2000, 2004, 2008 and the World Cups in 2002 and 2006. In addition, Malak has covered the Autosport events such as Formula 1 and World Rallying Championships for the Arabic Service for the last five seasons.

Nicholas Phythian

Nicholas Phythian worked for Reuters for more than 20 years in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia as a reporter, sub-editor, bureau chief or editor with news editing and management responsibilities. Political and general news is his speciality. 

A Briton and fluent French speaker, he covered stories ranging from the 1991 Gulf War in Iraq and its aftermath to the collapse of Communist rule in the Soviet bloc, civil war in Liberia and Sierra Leone or South Africa’s first multi-racial elections.

As a consultant for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, he has devised and run workshops for or in association with such organisations as Revenue Watch, the Stanley Foundation, UNICEF, the World Bank or China's Tsinghua University around topics as diverse as politics and general news, oil and gas, the environment, AIDS and TB, media law or nutrition.

Nick Kotch

Nick Kotch is a former Reuters Africa bureau chief who now works as a journalism and media trainer, a correspondent and a consultant across the continent. A Briton aged 53, he has also contributed to National Geographic, observed presidential elections in Cameroon and written the text of a photographic book on Nelson Mandela.

A graduate of Oxford University, he speaks fluent French and passable Italian. Since leaving Reuters in 2004 after 27 years as a correspondent, editor and bureau chief, he has trained journalists and communicators in 20 African countries for a variety of international and African clients. Working in English or French his courses cover subjects as varied as governance, labour relations, business and sport. Clients include "Reuters Foundation, the International Labour Organisation, UNDP, the IAJ and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in South Africa".

Raquel Stenzel

Raquel Stenzel has been working as Reuters training editor for Latin America since 2006. She has been a reporter and editor in Brazil for 20 years, starting in Brasilia in 1990. During her first ten years as a reporter, she worked for leading national newspapers and news agencies including Correio Brasiliense, Gazeta Mercantil, Estado de Sao Paulo, and Agencia Estado. She covered a wide range of areas from commodities, macroeconomics, and trade agreements, to foreign affairs, land reform, political elections and general news. She joined Reuters in September 1998, as correspondent for the Central Bank and Finance Ministry, when the Brazilian financial crisis erupted, and has worked since then as an editor for the Brazilian Financial Service, and set up the Reuters Spanish language desk in Santiago. In May 2006, she joined Reuters Americas training team, as the first editorial training editor for Latin America.

Toni Reinhold

Toni Reinhold is a journalist, editor, author and teacher of journalists. She currently is assigned as an Editor-in-Charge of the business editing desk for Reuters in New York, where she works with reporters in the Americas and other Reuters bureaus around the world. Reinhold joined Reuters more than 18 years ago as a correspondent covering economics, finance and business. Since then, she has served as an emerging markets correspondent, correspondent covering the federal Reserve, a desk editor. Editor-in-Charge of journalists' training in the Americas, and Editor-in-Charge of the New York Desk.

Before joining Reuters, Reinhold worked as a crime reporter and investigative reporter for New York City newspapers, a features reporter for magazines and as an internationally syndicated columnist.  
Some 15 years ago, she started teaching journalists around the world on behalf of the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

She has taught courses on reporting general and political news, financial and business news, international affairs, and ethics and first principles in journalism throughout the Americas and in Russia, Barbados, the UK, Trinidad-Tobago, Czech Republic, China, Viet Nam, India, and Lebanon. 

Reinhold is an author of six mass market books, including "Untamed," the as-told-to autobiography of animal trainer Gunther Gebel Williams, and "Patient or Pretender - Inside the Strange World of Factitious Disorders." 

She is president of The Newswomen's Club of New York and a member of the board of the Overseas Press Club. She was named one of the 21 Leaders for the 21^st Century in 2011 by Women’s eNews.