Staff

Our staff consists of award-winning television, media producers, and professionals.

Paul Jay- Chair of the Board, CEO, Senior Editor. Creator and Executive Producer of CBC Newsworld's debate program counterSpin. Award-winning documentary filmmaker and founding Chair of Hot Docs!, the Canadian International Documentary Film Festival. www.jfilm.org

Mishuk Munier - Director of News Operations. Mishuk has filmed throughout South East Asia as a news and documentary cameraman for BBC World Service, ARD1 and Fox/StarTV. Head of News Operations for the first private terrestrial network in Bangladesh, Ekushey TV (ETV), he taught broadcast journalism at the University of Dhaka.

Sharmini Peries - Executive Director, Editorial Policy and Development. Sharmini has served as Executive Director of the following organizations: the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, the Royal Commission on Systemic Racism in the Criminal Justice System, the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants and the Human Rights Code Review Task Force in Ontario. She has been an economic and political issues journalist for several publications, including Frontline India.

Ania Smolenskaia - Ania is a graduate of Ontario College of Art and Design film and video program and has worked in production and post-production prior to joining the Real News team, where she found a way to successfully marry her two passions: art and politics.

Pepe Escobar - News Analyst. Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil is the roving correspondent for Asia Times and an analyst for The Real News Network. He's been a foreign correspondent since 1985, based in London, Milan, Los Angeles, Paris, Singapore, and Bangkok. Since the late 1990s, he has specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central Asia, including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has made frequent visits to Iran and is the author of Globalistan and also Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad During the Surge both published by Nimble Books in 2007.

Hezvo Mpunga - IT and Website Development. Hezvo worked as a sound engineer in New Jersey, US before moving to Toronto. Hezvo's work for The Real News takes in graphic design, web development and sound engineering.

Taruna Godric - Communications and Volunteer Coordinator. Taruna has travelled extensively throughout Africa, the Middle East and India. She moved to Toronto to do a post graduate diploma in Journalism- New Media. She joined The Real News Network as an intern in April 2008 and now works with the Communications and Social Media team.

Lia Tarachansky - Journalist Lia is an independent journalist working in print and video. Before coming to The Real News, she reported for Rabble.ca, Canadian Dimension, and The Dominion. Most of her writing is on the Middle East, Indigenous issues, and the environment.

Joel Heard