Christina M. Paschyn

About

Christina M. Paschyn, MS and MA, is a multimedia journalist and award-winning documentary filmmaker. She has reported for major news organizations across the globe, including the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, TIME.com in London, E News in Johannesburg and KVRR-TV as the station’s congressional correspondent in Washington, D.C. Her video work has appeared on CNN and Euronews and her writing has been published in The New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, Women’s eNews, Chime for Change, Al-Fanar Media, THINK. Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar Arabia, Cosmopolitan Middle East and the Chicago Journal, among other publications.

Paschyn wrote, shot, and directed the documentary film, “A Struggle for Home: The Crimean Tatars.” The film chronicles the rich and often tragic history of the Crimean Tatar people, the Muslim-Turkic indigenous population of the Crimean Peninsula, from ancient times to the aftermath of the 2014 Russian annexation of the peninsula. It premiered at the Al Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival in November 2015 and played in several other film festivals and professional venues, including the European Parliament in Brussels and the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute in Washington, D.C. It won several awards, including Best International Film at the DC Independent Film Festival in March 2016, Best Documentary at the Poppy Jasper International Film Festival in April 2016, and 1st place Short Foreign Documentary at the Indie Gathering International Film Festival in August 2016. The film was purchased for broadcast by Al Jazeera and Axess TV.

In her work as a journalist, Paschyn has covered a variety of under-reported topics, such as women’s rights and gender issues in the Gulf, education policies in the GCC, deteriorating press freedom in Ukraine, net neutrality, and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster anniversary and its relevance to the Fukushima nuclear crisis. She delivered live shots and interviews about the rocket strikes on Be’er Sheva during the 2009 Israel-Gaza War for multiple news outlets, including WEWS News Channel 5 in Cleveland.

Paschyn earned a MA in Middle East Studies from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev as a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar. There, she volunteered as a video producer for Step Forward, an NGO working to empower the Bedouin population in the city of Rahat. Paschyn also earned a BS and a MS in broadcast journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University through its Accelerated Master’s Degree Program. Paschyn also speaks Ukrainian and is studying Arabic.

Teaching

• JOUR 201 Reporting, Writing and Multimedia Storytelling
• JOUR 203 Multimedia Storytelling
• JOUR 342 Advanced Online Storytelling
• JOUR 390 Special Topics: Covering Gender Issues in Journalism
• JOUR 390 Special Topics: Empowering Women through Feminist Media Production
• JOUR 390 Special Topics: Fashion Journalism
• JOUR 390 Special Topics: Installing a Multimedia Majlis
• JOUR 390 Special Topics: Undergraduate Research in Media
• MIT 190: Media Construction
• MIT 330 Special Topics: Creative Collaboration

Research

• Media, journalism and mass communication
• Documentary film
• Photojournalism and video/broadcast journalism
• Gender issues in media and feminist media research
• Representations of Qatari women in local news media
• Symbolic annihilation of women in Gulf media
• Gulf women’s social media usage
• Use of social media by feminist activists to engage Middle Eastern audiences and advance their causes
• Muslim ethnoreligious groups in Eastern Europe

Awards & Grants

Best International Film, DC Independent Film Festival 2016. For film, “A Struggle for Home: The Crimean Tatars.”

Best Documentary, Poppy Jasper International Film Festival 2016. For film, “A Struggle for Home: The Crimean Tatars.”

1st place Short Foreign Documentary, The Indie Gathering International Film Festival 2016. For film, “A Struggle for Home: The Crimean Tatars.”

Silver Award Winner, Spotlight Documentary Film Awards 2015. For film, “A Struggle for Home: The Crimean Tatars.”

Qatari Women: Engagement and Empowerment. (March 30, 2014–September 30, 2015). Co-Investigator, Qatar National Research Fund, $150,000 USD.

Winner of Best Paper Award in "The Role of State Policies on Family Formation and Stability" pillar. For article: Kane, T., Mir, S., Mitchell, J., Paschyn, C. M., & Pike, K. (2015). In Majaalis Al-Hareem: The Complex Professional and Personal Choices of Qatari Women. DIFI Family Research and Proceedings, Volume-issue 4, starting page 0. Journal published by Qatar Foundation.

Northwestern University in Qatar “Unity Award,” May 2014, for the QNRF UREP grant, “Qatari Women: Engagement and Empowerment.”

Publications

Paschyn, C. M. (2018). How International Media Tackled the Gulf Blockade. In The 2017 Gulf Crisis: The View from Qatar. Published by HBKU Press.

Lance, E. & Paschyn, C. M. (2018). The applicability of symbolic annihilation in the Middle East. Book chapter in Feminist Approaches to Media Research and Theory. Published by Palgrave Macmillan.

Mir, S. & Paschyn, C. M. (2018). Qatar’s Hidden Women: Symbolic Annihilation and Documentary Media Practice. Visual Communication Quarterly, Volume 25, Issue 2, pp. 93-105. Journal published by Taylor & Francis. Official publication of the Visual Communication Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

Paschyn, C. M. (May 19, 2016). Russia Is Trying to Wipe Out Crimea’s Tatars. The New York Times

Paschyn, C. M.  (Oct. 2015). A Struggle for Home: The Crimean Tatars. Documentary film. Festival premiere at Al Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival, Doha, Qatar. For full list of screenings, visit: http://astruggleforhome.com.

Kane, T., Mir, S., Mitchell, J., Paschyn, C. M., & Pike, K. (2015). In Majaalis Al-Hareem: The Complex Professional and Personal Choices of Qatari Women. DIFI Family Research and Proceedings, Volume-issue 4, starting page 0. Journal published by Qatar Foundation. (Winner of Best Paper Award for "The Role of State Policies on Family Formation and Stability" pillar.)

Paschyn, C. M. (2014). Check Your Orientalism at the Door: Edward Said, Sanjay Seth, and the Adequacy of Western Pedagogy. The Journal of General Education, Volume 63, Numbers 2-3, pp. 222-231. Journal published by Penn State University Press.

Paschyn, C. M. (May 1, 2014). Educated and ambitious, Qatari women nudge their way into the office. Christian Science Monitor. 

Paschyn, C. M. (December 17, 2013). Qatar’s Invisible Women. Chime for Change. 

Paschyn, C. M. (October 25, 2013). Zig-Zagging Education Policies Leave Qatari Students Behind. Al-Fanar Media.

Paschyn, C. M. (2012) Qatar: Anatomy of a Globalized State. THINK. magazine.