TEAM
At bja, you’ll learn from people who've spent years in the field, and believe in what they do.
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Journalist, BJA founder // reporting, pitching, interviewing, publishing, critical investigation
Nadja is a London-trained journalist with 28 years across news, war reporting, editing, publishing and investigation. She began her career as Moscow correspondent with the AFP news agency, while extensively writing for the English press. Her investigative pieces and TV reporting from the Chechnya war despite the media blockade (France 2, ZDF) led to her being blacklisted by Putin's regime and exiled.
In 2002 Nadja co-founded Exberliner. For 21 years she served as publisher and Editor-in-Chief, turning the Berlin publication into "Europe's best expat magazine" (The Guardian), reputed for its first-hand journalism and independent spirit.
A Sorbonne-trained sociologist, she previously taught at the University of Moscow. Today she teaches, moderates talks and screenings, and leads a transnational investigation team (MGP, mainstream media's coverage of Gaza), while reporting for French media from Berlin.
In her workshops (Pitch Like a Pro / The Art of Interviewing / Live Q&A / 14-Day Intensive Newsroom) she shares the know-how of an accomplished reporter and the hard-won craft of an Editor-in-Chief who spent 20 years hiring, editing and coaching young journalists.
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Graphic designer // Layout and designMaiia Dadunashvili is a graphic designer with over two years of studio experience, focusing on editorial design and visual identity. She has designed the cover for LOGOS, one of Russia’s leading youth philosophical-literary magazines, and developed the distinctive visual identity for BJA. Her experience also includes working on the BJA x TTJ August collaborative issue, as well as design collaborations with IFA and Miles. With BJA Maia offers first-hand experience in how thoughtful design shapes and ultimately amplifies written narratives. She contributes to production workshops, laying out students’ pieces and designing editorial concepts for BJA magazines.
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Journalist // Marketing director
Julia Fraatz is a writer, journalist, and art critic who has lived and worked in publishing in Berlin since 2013. She received extensive hands-on training at the London School of Journalism, and her work appears in ARTSCAPE REVIEW magazine, Exberliner, and other outlets.
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Journalist, video producer // Multimedia, video journalism
Zhou Sifan is a journalist and video producer with over nine years of experience, beginning her career at Shanghai Media Group as a director for major programs like "Chinese Idol" and "China's Got Talent." She holds a Master's in Broadcasting and Communication from Fudan University, a leading institution in Asia renowned for its journalism program. Currently based in Berlin, she has worked as a Digital News Editor for international agencies, including Ruptly and Viory. She now produces video news for social media clients and conducts vox-pop interviews with her own equipment. Zhou is also a co-host and producer of the "OnCall" podcast and is developing an independent documentary about the Chinese diaspora community in Berlin.
Zhou brings extensive practical experience in digital and video journalism to the classroom. She’ll show you how to create short form ‘spotlight’ videos about your chosen topic.
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Journalist // Podcast, first person reporting in print and on screen
Ben Knight is a Berlin-based journalist and filmmaker whose work has appeared in Deutsche Welle, The Guardian, Prospect, the New Statesman, Vice, 100Reporters, derFreitag and elsewhere. His features have covered German arms makers in the Black Forest, zoophilia in Essen, pagan cults in Brandenburg, illegal fishing in Sierra Leone… up to and including colonic irrigation. In 2021, AP published his investigation into corruption in the Chinese healthcare system, produced with the US investigative group 100Reporters. In 2024, he completed his first documentary, entitled "We're All Going To Die". Ben has also been running a German politics podcast since 2018.
With Ben you’ll learn the shenanigans of first-person reportage pieces, and the art of immersing while keeping the right distance, in print, on air and for the screen.
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Journalist // Data journalism
Arthur is a freelance data journalist from Paris. He’s a regular contributor to French daily l'Humanité, where he covers news pieces on Economy, International affairs, Society and Politics. Dumas is above all a recognised specialist on Investigative data journalism, which he also teaches at a journalism institute, ESJ Pro in Montpellier, France.
With Arthur you'll learn how to quantify social issues using the latest tech, and develop tools to identify (and avoid) media bias, and that in data journalism correlation does not imply causality.
“One cannot be neutral, but, as a journalist your methods should be.”
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Film and book criticism
Alireza Akbari is an Iranian journalist, editor and film and literary critic with more than 20 years of experience in journalism and publishing. He has worked as an editor and contributor for several Iranian magazines and served as editor-in-chief of Safir Publishing House in Tehran. His work focuses on Iranian and Middle Eastern literature, cinema and intellectual history.
Since moving to Berlin in 2022, he has worked as a freelance journalist for international media, including Der Spiegel, FilmPost and Orama Film Journal. He has also contributed to publications and journals covering Iranian cinema and culture and has participated as a film critic at international film festivals, including the Koker International Short Film Festival.
He is currently based in Berlin, where he continues to work as a journalist, film and literary curator and critic, covering Iranian cinema, literature and cultural affairs.
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Journalist // International and political analysis
Muhammad Sheraz is an international journalist focusing on South and Central Asia with over 30 years of experience . He started his career in Pakistan in the early 1990s hosting high profile political TV talk shows and worked for the BBC World Service, where he produced investigative reports on Islamic militancy among British Muslims. Sheraz reported on Afghanistan politics from the 1980s and conducted many interviews with key protagonists from King Zahir Shah, ex PM Benazir Bhutto, and Ahmad Masood. Between 2001 and 2006, Sheraz extensively covered conflict and peace in Afghanistan and Pakistan, later serving as editor for Middle East and South and Central Asia news at Future News Service in London. As senior producer at Press TV London, he helped launch the popular show Behind the Headlines. Recognized for his insightful analysis, Sheraz also regularly provides political commentary for Al-Jazeera TV Qatar.
Sheraz brings our students a wider non-western perspective and the experience of an insider of world news-making as a reporter, producer and commentator.
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Bootcamp programme manager
Will has been running the Treetop journalism programme in Berlin for the last five years. He coordinates BJA’s spring-session Bootcamps.