Contestant: Emad Mekay

Emad Mekay’s first story as an intern at the only English-language newspaper in Cairo was about children peddling tissue paper at the city’s suffocating traffic stops. He found this ability to expose injustice to be intoxicating, and that interest has defined his career. After graduating from Ain Shams University in Cairo in 1991, Mekay was a reporter in the New York Times’ Middle East bureau for three years. He later worked for Reuters and Bloomberg News. He covered the aftermath of Sept. 11 in the United States for Inter Press Service in Washington D.C. and has freelanced for numerous publications around the world. During a decade of working in the United States, Mekay became frustrated with both the Arab and American media’s coverage of U.S. foreign policy and actions in the Middle East. He decided to launch America in Arabic News Agency, the first independent for-profit publisher of news online in Arabic from the United States.