Wajahat Saeed Khan

Wajahat Saeed Khan (born 1978), is an Emmy-award nominated Pakistani multimedia journalist. He has produced and anchored for Pakistan’s major cable networks, reported for international networks as well as edited and written for local, regional and global publications. Currently, Khan is reporting & producing from Lahore for NBC News, and is the National Security Correspondent for Dunya News. He also contributes to The Times and India Today.

Early life and education

Khan was born in Quetta, Balochistan to a family of civil servants. He was eventually schooled at the Karachi Grammar School, where he was selected as the editor of the school magazine, The Grammarian. He then majored in Political Science and History from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor where he reported for and edited The Michigan Daily. Subsequently, he became the first Pakistani to be nominated as a fellow at Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, Harvard University.^[1]

Career

Khan's broadcast career started soon after his return from college, when electronic media was deregulated in Pakistan in the early 2000s by the regime of General (retired) Pervez Musharraf. Khan joined the country's largest media house, the Jang Group of Newspapers/Geo News, as Manager of News Product Development and Strategy before switching to news production. He was at Geo News, the country's primary cable news network, from 2003-2007. He then helped launch Dawn News in 2007 where his broadcast career effectively took off with the interview series "Talk Back"; he also became the first Pakistani to produce an investigative / interview series from India for "Talk Back - Eye on India". Khan also produced the first independent documentary series on the Pakistani military, "We Are Soldiers", which was eventually banned by Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority.

Khan remained at Dawn News till 2010. In 2011, Khan was nominated as a Goldsmith Fellow by the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, Harvard University. As the first Pakistani, and the youngest fellow, at the Shorenstein Center, Khan authored a study about the rise of militancy and hate content on Pakistani social media.^[2]

From 2012 till 2013, Khan switched languages and conducted the series "Ikhtilaf" ["Opposition"], for AAJ TV.^[3][4]

In 2013, he joined The Jang Group of Newspapers/Geo News again, but in the new capacity of the National Security Editor of Pakistan's largest media house. His writings at The News/Jang focused on the Pakistani military.^[5]

In 2015, he was appointed the Executive Vice President and Senior Anchorperson at BOL Network for a few weeks before resigning due to the Axact scandal^[6] before joining Dunya News as an Anchor for the groundbreaking and hit field-based series, Mahaaz.^[7]

In 2016 Khan wrote several opinion pieces in eminent US Publications such as Forbes,^[8] The Washington Times,^[9] The Hill ^[10] and The Daily Caller ^[11] illustrating the short comings of US Policy in Pakistan and possible improvements including failings in US policy implementation in Pakistan such as USAID and Transparency International. This has been followed up in 2017 with pieces such as those in the Foreign Policy Association ^[12] highlighting similar concerns.

In July 2018, along with coverage Pakistan's 10th general elections, Khan completed 200 episodes of Mahaaz. For long-form investigative pieces, he also founded The Bureau of Investigative Reporting, a not-for-profit reporting collective which pursues journalism for the public benefit and covers issues usually not covered by the mainstream media in Pakistan.^[13]

Khan did a short stint for CNN in 2011-12, before moving on to produce and then correspond for NBC News from Islamabad, Kabul, London and Kathmandu.^[14]

His first book titled "Game Changer - Being Shahid Afridi" is slated to come out in 2018.^[15] The book is being published by Harper Collins^[16] and is a biographical account of the life of famous Pakistani cricketer Shahid Afridi.

References