AUC-UNESCO Series: Social Media Verification: Assessing Sources and Visual Content

Dina Abou Ghazala

Journalist, Founder and CEO of Egab

A media entrepreneur, a bilingual journalist and a diplomatic spouse.



I spent the last 14 years working as a digital journalist for BBC Monitoring. My work involved reporting day-to-day political, social, economic, cultural and media developments in the Arab world as well as writing explainers and analysis to help our customers and other BBC platforms make sense of what’s going on in this part of the world.



When I wasn’t busy covering news, I would be producing human stories for BBC News.

My career has spanned over three regions, taking me to Addis Ababa and London in addition to my hometown, Cairo.



I had a brief stint of 1.5 years covering jihadist activity across the world, after which I went on to get my MA in Interactive Journalist from City, University of London, upon securing a Chevening Scholarship. I followed the MA with a six-week program on documentary making from UCL.



Throughout my career, I developed a passion for solutions journalism. I am also a strong advocate for diversity in media.



Therefore, I recently combined these two passions to launch Egab; a media startup that helps young journalists from across the Middle East and Africa publish solutions journalism stories to regional and international media outlets.

George Salama

Head of Public Policy & Government Relations Middle East & North Africa, Pakistan & Afghanistan Twitter, Inc.

George Salama, Head of Public Policy & Government Relations – Middle East and North Africa, for Twitter, Inc. In his role, George is leading the strategic engagement with key governments, political figures, policymakers, regulatory authorities, law enforcement agencies, lawmakers, Civil Society and Media. George is aiming to advance policy beneficial to the platform and its users.

Before Twitter, George was Sr. Manager Public Policy for SAMENA Telecom Council, ICT Industry Association based in Dubai, where he was in charge of setting up and executing the council’s public policy plan and business strategies in a way that positively shapes the ICT industry growth.

Prior his move to the UAE, George spent over 7 years with the Egyptian Government, National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA), where he was in charge of International Technical Coordination and Internet Public Policy.

George holds MSc Business Information Technology Middlesex University – UK and he is a graduate of the American University in Cairo with a BSc in Computer Science and a minor in Electronics.

Khouloud Abdullah

Associate Professor and Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Media and Communication, King Abdulaziz University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Amr El Iraqi

ICFG Knight Fellow

Executive director and editor for the international award-winning data journalism team, InfoTimes, and pioneered data-driven storytelling in the region.



Lecturer at the American University in Cairo (AUC) where I teach ‘Data for Media’. I am also a data consultant for the World Bank and contributes to the data literacy program in the MENA region. I have over 15 years of experience in the field of journalism (print, TV and online).



Throughout the years, I trained thousands of journalists across the MENA region in collaboration with various prominent organizations such as BBC Media Action, Internews Europe, DW Academy, and Free Press Unlimited. In 2016, I authored his first book ‘The Fundamentals of Data Journalism’, which was published in Arabic by Al-Arabi for Publishing and Distribution.



The following year, I published his second book ‘Data Journalism Handbook to Covering Human Rights Issues’, which was published by Journalists for Human Rights organization.

Amal El Ghezawi

Professor and Dean of Mass Communication, Canadian International College, Egypt