Episode 15 - Cool Brown Kids Club with Meher Ahmad

Diversity Hire

Hello and welcome to Episode 15 of Diversity Hire.

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Today we talked to Meher Ahmad a senior editor at Rest of World, an international nonprofit journalism organization that focuses on global stories about technology and culture. We discussed Meher’s time as a hardboiled kid journalist in Indianapolis, how she went from a blogger to a globe-trotting video journalist and foreign correspondent, what it feels like to be a fish out of water as a brown ex-pat journalist and the challenges of reporting on your own home country, how the three of us balance being both cool and brown, and much more. Kevin and Arjun also talk about basketball and the wine bar of their dreams, which they hope listeners will one day help them open.

Thanks for listening!

* Kevin and Arjun talk about the NBA Finals (0:00)

* Meher talks about living on the worst block in Brooklyn (7:40)

* Meher leads us through her career timeline (9:35)

* The ins-and-outs of being a kid journalist (13:21)

* Working at Gawker and Vice during the 2010s heyday (17:31)

* Why Meher prefers print journalism to TV journalism (22:04)

* How Meher balances mental anxiety while reporting and traveling around the world (23:21) [The New York Times Magazine, Letter of Recommendation: In-Flight Moves ]

* Reporting on your home country as an ex-pat and the difficulty of being accepted by the locals (29:20)

* Meher’s meet-cute in Pakistan (34:23) [The New York Times, In My Sari, Kissing the Soccer Coach]

* Transitioning to life back in the states (36:00)

* Why the Bay Area sucks (38:00)

* Being cool and being brown (39:00) [The Outline, MIA Is Too Raw for the Radio]

* Why Kumail Nanjiani sucks (45:15)

* Representational politics SUCK! (48:00)

* Social life as an ex-pat in Karachi (50:00)

* Learning how to be an editor and learning how to cover tech (53:30) [Rest of World, Audrey Tang on her “conservative-anarchist” vision for Taiwan’s future]

* Arjun’s Feelings Don’t Care About Facts Corner (58:06)

* The Diversity Tribunal (1:06:53)

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