Career

September 2005-Now

Assistant Professor of Communication, American University of Beirut, Beirut Lebanon.

Courses:

• Basic News Writing

• Advanced News Writing

• Communication Campaigns

• Public Opinion

Nov â?? Dec 2004

Consultant Editor, Tarabaran Publications, Tehran, publishers of the Persian language Sanâ??at-e Haml-o Naghl (Transport Industry) and Safar (Travel) monthlies and the English language quarterly, International Transport Magazine. My responsibilities included streamlining the editorial structure of the magazine group, enhance its professional capabilities and help develop a plan for recruitment, training and retention of staff.

Feb 2003-Oct 2004

Gender and Media Specialist, United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), Afghanistan

Responsibilities & Activities:

·         Supported by one assistant, my work was aimed at:

o        Supporting Afghanistanâ??s women media professionals to increase their skills and expertise and their status within the media;

o        Offering support and training to encourage Afghan womenâ??s participation in the media;

o        Increasing gender awareness among Afghan media professionals as a whole;

o        Coordinating UNIFEMâ??s efforts to promote gender equity in Afghan society through the countryâ??s media.

           The projects completed included:

o        Producing a directory of Afghanistan's women's newspapers (more than 20 entries), and a directory of the Afghan women journalists);

o        Supporting the formation of the Afghan Women Journalists' Forum, a coordinating group that held a series of educational conferences for women journalists from across the country, attended by professional journalists, academics and leading politicians;

o        Providing gender-focused communications training at Afghanistanâ??s Ministry of Womenâ??s Affairs, Afghanistan Radio and Television and Kabul Universityâ??s Faculty of Journalism;

o        Providing business awareness and fund-raising skills training for women media managers;

o        Providing editorial and technical support to womenâ??s newspapers and radio stations and NGOs;

o        Producing literature â?? in Persian, Pashto and English â?? on various aspects of womenâ??s rights, including the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), womenâ??s economic empowerment, and the campaign to end violence against women;

o        Producing a report and a video documentary â?? in 3 language â?? on the 2003 International Womenâ??s Day celebrations in Afghanistan;

o        Producing 43 issues of the weekly, English language bulletin, Women in the News, containing translations of a selection of report by or about women carried by the media in Afghanistan.

September â?? December 2002

Lecturer in Economics, part-time, London Metropolitan University;

Lecturer in Radio Journalism part-time, University of East London.

Both courses were taught alongside my own doctoral research at St Antonyâ??s College, Oxford University.

January 1999 â?? September 2001

Manager, Journalism & Production, BBC World Service Training Department. (I left the BBC to begin my doctoral research at Oxford University on journalism in Iran since the 1979 Revolution.)

Responsibilities & Activities:

·   Managing five Senior Trainers - supported by a team of 10 technical and administrative staff  - covering all aspects of radio and online journalism;

·   Developing the training syllabus, including new courses to meet the changing needs of the BBC World Service;

·   Advising BBC World Service departments in their training programmes;

·   Compiling and editing World Service Training Departmentâ??s first textbook, the Handbook of Radio Journalism;

·   Organising and supervising residential courses on various aspects of the BBC and the British society for World Service journalists from other countries;

·   Organising seminars on topical issues for World Service staff, addressed by specialists from outside and inside the BBC. The subjects included the US Presidential Election; Palestine and Israel; the Falun Gong in China; the Enlargement of the European Union; Refugees in Britain; Parliamentary elections in Iran; Russian Presidential Elections; GM foods; the Challenges of Internet Journalism; and Africaâ??s mineral wealth and political conflicts;

· Organising and delivering courses in the field for World Service reporters based outside Britain;

· Teaching radio journalism at the Palestinian Bir Zeit University (the course was conducted in Arabic);

· Teaching radio journalism at university and high-school levels in England (sometimes on a voluntary basis).

March-June 2001

Assistant Editor, BBC Arabic Service

Responsibilities & Activities:

·       Managing the newsgathering operation;

·       Contributing to the editorial meetings;

·       Producing news material from Arabic Service programmes for the World Service news output in English;

·       Giving feedback to producers and reporters in the field;

·       Drawing up training and development plans for the reporters in the field and the news and current affairs team in London.

March 94-Dec 98

Senior Trainer, Journalism, BBC World Service Training Department

Responsibilities & Activities:

·    Designing, organising and delivering courses on writing news stories, reports and analysis for radio; interviewing; and programme making;

·    Organising and conducting training courses in various Asian countries for World Service reporters based in the region

·    Organising the training course for the launch of â??The Worldâ?, the US public radio current affairs programme which is produced jointly by the BBC and WGBH, Boston;

·    Teaching radio journalism at the Palestinian Bir Zeit University (the course was conducted in Arabic);

·   In 1996 and 1998, I took time off from the BBC to work in Iran, training journalists at two independent Persian language monthlies: Sanâ??at-e Haml-o Naghl (Transport Industry), and Lawh (the Tablet) which specialises in education.

Oct. - Dec. 96

Guest editor at Iranâ??s leading economics monthly Sanâ??at-e Haml-o Naghl (Transport Industry), to which I have contributed for more than ten years, writing on economics, the aviation industry and the Iranian media (for titles of some of the articles, please see list of publications below). My Persian translation of The Economics of Social Problems (by LeGrand, Propper, Robinson), was seralised by the monthly between September 1991 and October 1994.

April 90 â?? March 94

Chief-Sub Editor, BBC World Service News Department, writing news stories and compiling news bulletins for broadcast in English and other languages; coordinating news production teams.

April - May 92           

BBC World Service correspondent in Tajikistan, covering the rise of the countryâ??s independence movement.

Sep. 88-April 90

Sub Editor, BBC World Service News Department, writing news stories and compiling news bulletins for broadcast in English and other languages.

Aug. 83 â?? Sep. 88

Producer, BBC Persian Service, writing, reporting, interviewing and producing news and other programmes; reporting and analysing the developments in Iran, Afghanistan and the Arab world.

May 80 â?? April 83

Translator/interpreter, New Zealand Embassy, Tehran

Sep 79 â?? May 80

Translator/sub-editor, the English language news bulletin, Flame, published for foreign correspondents based in Tehran

July â?? Aug. 79

Writer/reporter, the English language daily, Kayhan International, Tehran

June â?? July 79

Translator/interpreter for the Tehran correspondents of the British dailies, the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph

Selected papers and other publications

23 Aug. 2006

From Damascus to Beirut

http://www.iranian.com/Shahidi/2006/August/Lebanon/index.html

6 August 2006

Stop the War â?? report on London march calling for peace

http://www.iranian.com/Shahidi/2006/August/London/index.html

31 July 2006

Strong and clear signal â?? report on London rally against the war http://www.iranian.com/Shahidi/2006/August/Protest/index.html

30 July 2006

Professional Journalism in Palestine , paper presented at the conference of the International Association for Media and Communication Research, Cairo

http://www.iranian.com/Shahidi/2006/July/Palestine/index.html

20 July 2006

Calm Amid the Storm : Comments on the war between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah

http://www.iranian.com/PeyvandKhorsandi/2006/July/Shahidi/index.html

March 2006

From Mission to Profession: Iranian Journalism, 1979-2004 , Iranian Studies quarterly .

January 2004

Women, leadership & the press in Afghanistan , November 2003 â?? January 2004 , an analytical survey of press reports on womenâ??s political activities prior to and during the Constitutional Loya Jirga (Grand Assembly).

October 2003 â?? September 2004

43 issues of Women in the News, a weekly bulletin of news about women carried by the Afghan media, published with the aim of informing the gender debate about Afghanistan.

Summer 2003

Afghan Women Celebrate International Womenâ??s Day (editor and layout artist) , a report in Persian, Pashto and English, published by UNIFEM-Afghanistan.

June 2003

Afghan Women Celebrate International Womenâ??s Day (executive producer) a documentary video in Persian, Pashto and English.

August 2002

Farhad, the Voice of the â??70s Iranian Youthsâ?? Conscience, a tribute (in Persian) to the progressive Iranian musician and singer, Farhad Mehrad, who died in Paris after a long illness.

http://www.iranian.com/Arts/2002/August/Farhad1/

July 2002

Fairuz in Paris, singing of love and Palestine , report in English.

http://www.iranian.com/Music/2002/July/Fairuz/index.html

March 2002

Imam, Negm and the Iranian student in Beirut, a report in Arabic for the BBCâ??s Arabic Service of my meeting with the renowned poet, Ahmad Fouad Negm, in Cairo.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/arabic/news/newsid_1897000/1897406.stm

February 2002

o        â??So â?? Whatâ??s your view?â?, Persian version of the BBCâ??s journalism training manual, for use in Afghanistan.

o        Persian versions of the BBCâ??s manuals for digital recording and editing (Mini-disc and Cool Edit Pro), for training in Afghanistan.

January 2002

Women in Iranian Journalism, 1910-1997 - in Women, Religion and Culture in Iran, published by the Royal Asiatic Society and Curzon Press, London.

December 2001

The Iranian Media: A Battleground of Guidance and Freedom, paper presented at the Asien-Afrika-Institut, University of Hamburg.

November

2001

Afghanistan: An Iranian perspective - Paper delivered at St Antonyâ??s College, Oxford University, and later published by the internet journal, the Iranian Times: http://www.iranian.com/Opinion/2001/November/Afghan/index.html

June 2001

Iran and the BBC Persian Service: 60 Years of Love and Hate , paper presented at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. The paper has been carried in English and Persian by the internet journal, the Iranian Times, as " Inajaa Landan Ast " (This is London): BBC Persian Service, 60 Years On.

http://www.iranian.com/History/2001/September/BBC/index.html

April 2001

The Brutalisation of the Iranian Society¸ paper on the rapid rise of homicide in Iran, 1968-1997, including the serial killings of women in the 1990s, presented at the 19 ^th annual conference of the Center for Iranian Research and Analysis (CIRA) in Toronto, Canada.

April 2000

The BBC Persian Service, 1940-1953, and the Movement for the Nationalisation of Iranian Oil, paper presented at the 18 ^th annual conference of the Center for Iranian Research and Analysis (CIRA) in Bethesda, Maryland, USA. Published in English the April 2001 edition of the Journal of Iranian Research and Analysis, and in Persian in the September 2001 edition of the educational monthly Lawh (the Tablet), Tehran, No 11.

February 2000

Handbook of Radio Journalism, (compiled and edited) - the first textbook published by World Service Training.

December 1999

Observations on News Coverage in the Iranian Press , published in the Persian language educational monthly Lawh (the Tablet), Tehran, No 7. The article examines the use of sources, verification of information, accuracy, clarity of language, layout and the use of photographs, and other editorial issues.

March 1999 

Training and Professional Journalism - Interview with the Persian educational monthly Lawh (the Tablet), Tehran, No 4, looking at the techniques and style of journalism in the Iranian media.

March 1997 

A Distorted View of Life â?? A critical review of the form and content of Iranian television programmes during the autumn of 1996, published in the Iranian monthly, Sanâ??at-e Haml-o Naghl (Transport Industry), No 158.

August 1996           

160 Years of Journalism in Iran: Form Mission to Profession - Paper presented at a seminar on Iranian media at the Islamic Towhid Centre, London.

June 1996    

Iranian Press After the 1979 Revolution: The Quest for

Independence and Professionalism .

Paper presented at the Seminar on Civil Society in Iran, St. Antonyâ??s College, University of Oxford.

March 1996

The Development of Professional Journalism in Iran Since the 1979 Revolution â?? Paper presented at the 14 ^th Annual Conference of the Center for Iranian Research and Analysis (CIRA), Coventry, England.

June 1995

Indian Press Threatened by Paper Price Rise , report for the Iranian periodical, Payam-e Emrouz (Today's Message), No 6.

August 1994

Iranians in London, feature on the Iranian community in Britain, most of who live in London, for the Iranian periodical, Payam-e Emrouz (Today's Message), No 2.

May 1994     

How to Make Sure Your Bookâ??s a Flop - A critical examination of the Iranian book publishing industry, printed in the Iranian literary monthly, Adineh (Friday), Tehran.

March 1993 

Entertainment in Iran - A series of three special reports on the Iranian press, radio and television and cinema, broadcast by the BBC World Service in Persian and other languages.

Sept 1991-

October 94

Persian translation of the Economics of Social Problems ( by Julian Le Grand, Carol Propper and Ray Robinson), serialised by the Iranian economics monthly, Sanâ??at-e Haml-o Naghl (Transport Industry).

Sep 83-

March 93

Daily and weekly news reports, analytical articles and programmes on Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia and the Arab world, for broadcast on the BBC World Service in Persian, English and other languages.