Meet the distinguished journalists and analysts volunteering their time to independently review entries and recognize exceptional work from and about MENA communities.
Reem Akkad is The Washington Post’s Deputy Head of Visuals and its first Visual Enterprise Editor. She has led projects recognized with Webby Awards, Emmy nominations, Online Journalism Awards, and a Pulitzer finalist citation. Her work advances multimedia and social-first storytelling across photo, video, graphics, audio, illustration, and design.
Kareem Fahim has served as a Middle East correspondent for The Washington Post since 2022 and previously served as Istanbul bureau chief. Before joining the Post, he spent 11 years at The New York Times, covering the metro desk and then Cairo after the 2011 uprisings. He began his career at the Village Voice.
Isma'il Kushkush has contributed to The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Granta, Smithsonian, The Nation, Guernica, the Associated Press, and others. Based in Khartoum for eight years, he twice served as acting East Africa bureau chief for The New York Times in Nairobi.
Yousef Munayyer is Head of the Palestine/Israel Program and Senior Fellow at Arab Center Washington DC. He serves on the editorial committee of the Journal of Palestine Studies and previously led the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, Foreign Policy, and more.
Yasmin Vossoughian is a National Correspondent for NBC and a frequent fill-in anchor. She previously hosted MSNBC’s “Yasmin Vossoughian Reports.” She has been out front of major national and international stories, from the Trump hush-money trial and the 2020 election to Uvalde and the ongoing war in the Middle East.
