This biography is not a standard one, because I don't think I should be judged on my diplomas and positions in institutions only. I am a person, with a background, and all of that informs my journalism.
After 15 years of working in and on America's longest war in Afghanistan, I turned from a believer in Western journalism into a critical voice that seeks improvement. From a conservative religious villager we were not elite; media was somebody else world. Not mine. But I made it to the top of journalism, taught at Sciences Po, and published my work internationally. But the closer I came to the institutions that shape international journalism, the more I realized that the system that produces journalism has severe errors.
I wrote a PhD about this, calling out the eliteness and Whiteness at the top of Western news desks, and how this socializes the people working there into knowing predominantly one worldview, the Western one, while writing about the globe. Especially the heavy use of elite sources from Western and allied governments can misinform the world, while the voices and perspectives of people outside those circles remain unheard. This can also antagonize groups that are not like them, rather than helping us understand the world through their eyes.
With the Source Detector, Dam starts Unheard to make this problem visible, to help news desks understand whose voices shape their journalism, whose voices are missing, and ultimately to help improve journalism itself.
