About

I’m a journalist and author.

I’m the Head of Content for Freeda UK / English.

I also report and tell stories with words, audio, multimedia and social media, as well as with digital, emerging and unexpected platforms — from chat bots and text messages to disposable cameras and diary entries. I tell human stories that help us understand gender, power, and politics around the world.

I’m the author of GIRLHOOD, a book documenting the lives of teenage girls around the world for Algonquin Books, out February 2021. The book is based on a newsletter and series that I wrote for The Washington Post’s The Lily.

I’m an associate of the Imperial War Museum’s Institute for public understanding of war and conflict. I’m also on the team creating BASELINE, a documentary series about climate change.

Previously, I worked as a producer leading up strategy, reporting and storytelling on chat apps and other emerging social platforms at CNN and as national digital editor at the Washington Post, where I managed digital innovations, engagement strategy, and digital and social reporting and storytelling for the Washington Post's national and politics desk. In these roles, I’ve covered US politics and elections, the refugee crisis, the Olympics, women’s lives around the world, and more. My work ranges from curating part of a museum exhibit, editing a series of interviews about women in the workplace, interviewing Olympic athletes on Facebook Live, launching news organizations on emerging social platforms and more.

As an independent journalist, I’ve covered girlhood around the world to the lives of South Asian migrant domestic workers in the Middle East. I’ve also reported from inside a prison for the BBC, written about modern-day witch hunts in India for Vice, and covered child marriage for CNN.

I was part of the team that was awarded the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for coverage of the NSA. I also share in a Murrow Award and a Webby for CNN’s social media coverage of the 2016 election, and my audio storytelling projects at CNN have won an EPPY and been recognized as a Webby honoree. I am the recipient a grant from the International Women's Media Foundation for a project covering women's migration from Sri Lanka.I was part of the first class of the ONA-Poynter Leadership Academy for Women in Digital Media in 2015 and returned to teach at the program in 2016 as guest faculty. I also have served as a mentor and judge for Report For America’s fellows.

I mentor journalists through Digital Women Leaders, you can grab some time on my calendar and sign up for a session here. 

I have a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from the University of Oxford.

Want to collaborate, commission me or chat? Get in touch: masuma.ahuja@gmail.com