Murtaza Haider
Verified
(He/Him)
As seen in:
Financial Post,
Hello Monday with Jessi Hempel,
LinkedIn,
Medium,
MSN Money Canada,
MSN New Zealand,
HuffPost,
Yahoo Canada,
Yahoo Finance Canada,
MDPI,
SAGE Publishing
and
Covers:
urban economics, housing markets, transportation planning and engineering, higher education, real estate
Academic & a columnist for the Financial Post. Researches real estate & transport markets. Author: Getting Started w/ Data Science (goo.gl/9iXM2h).
Interview
What was your first job as a journalist?
Reporter, The Frontier Post (Islamabad, 1992)
Have you ever used a typewriter?
Yes. From 1988 to 1993.
How is social media changing news?
It is involving more with news, but is contributing to even shorter attention spans. The nuances are lost on social media consumers.
Who's your favorite fictional journalist?
Paul Krugman
What does it mean to be a journalist?
The ability to have conversations with your fellow ciitizens.
How do you prefer to be pitched on stories?
By email.
What tools and software do you use to do your job?
Microsoft Word for writing. Stata, R and Python for data analysis. Lots of online research databases for background research.
What's your favorite social network?
Twitter and LinkedIn
Who do you wish followed you?
Paul Krugman
Why did you become a journalist?
BEcause I love to write and speak. I can't wait for years for academic journals to publish what I have to say. And I have to say a lot!
Did you work for your high school newspaper? If so, what did you do there?
WE didn't have a highschool newspaper. I edited the university's magazine.
What advice can you offer to aspiring journalists?
Starting producing content. Post it online and pitch it to outlets that you'd like to work. Don't wait to be commissioned to produce.
What's the best pitch you ever got?
A 650 word column that needed no edits. No pitch, the final deliverable.
What's the worst pitch you ever got?
Too many to list.
What's your favorite drink?
Diet Coke!
When you're not at a computer, where are you most likely to be?
In an icerink watching my kids play hockey, or in a lecture hall delivering training in real estate and data science/econometrics.
Aside from your own, what's your favorite publication to read?
The Economist
What's the most common misperception about your beat?
That anyone can write about real estate.
Would you like to take the Muck Rack Interview?
Create a Muck Rack profile.