Jasmin is a German-Egyptian multimedia journalist, and a freelance producer for Al Jazeera’s podcast venture ‘Jetty’. While in South Sudan she rediscovered an old passion of hers: photography. A good thing she did. Check out her beautiful #thejubaseries photos on Instagram. She is a true all-rounder, telling stories through photos, video and audio. Jasmin is also a connector, networker and sharer. She introduces people to one another and invites them for collaborations, she brainstorms ideas with you and discusses future career plans. She embodies the IWMF family thought. I’m really grateful to have met Jasmin, especially since the freelance journo life can get sometimes a bit lonely and competitive.

There are many things I would have liked to ask Jasmin for this “Meet the fellow” article. Considering Jasmin’s multimedia approach, I decided for the following question: How do you decide which medium is best suitable to tell a specific story? This is what she said:

“Very often I don’t really know what format the story will take when I go into the field. I approach it with an open mind. I meet the protagonists and have an initial chat. I tend to do slow journalism, I don’t have to necessarily get everything I need on the first day. I discuss with my protagonists ahead of time what we will do, where we can go, what kind of action is to be expected and depending on that I decide whether this might work more for audio, video, photography or a written story. Sometimes it’s very complex or the protagonist is not very animated. Then it works best for a written story. I always do audio, at least I try to, because you never know if it can also be turned into a radio piece or podcast. All in all, the medium I choose really depends on how much action there is and on the scenes that I encounter. I don’t really have a favourite medium. I love all of them. They give you so much variety, are fun and creative. But I have to admit that audio is probably the most creative journalistic niche you can ever pursue. You can basically help people travel to a place in their mind which is really, really fantastic.”

-Katharina Wecker, South Sudan reporting fellow

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