EMRE KIZILKAYA

I am an editor and researcher who was a journalist and a manager at one of the largest media groups in Europe for more than 10 years during which I led digital content strategy and user engagement.

I am a Vice-Chair and an Executive Board member of the Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI), a global network that shares a dedication to quality journalism.

Currently, I am managing Journo in Turkey, a non-profit news platform for the next generation, supported by the Journalists’ Union (TGS) and the EU.

I was selected by Harvard University for Knight Visiting Nieman Fellowship in 2019.
I was awarded as the Digital Journalist of the Year in 2018 by the Turkish Journalists’ Association.
I co-produced Turkey’s first VR news video, which was highlighted in 2017 among “Best Practice” by the U.S.-based International News Media Association (INMA).
I co-produced “Turkey’s News Deserts“, which was ranked in the Top 100 in Sigma Awards 2022, a competition to celebrate the best data journalism from around the world.

I was quoted or interviewed by international media outlets, including The New York Times, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, BBC, Reuters, AP, ProPublica, AFP, Corriere Della Sera, Le Figaro, and The Intercept.

I also contributed to international publications including Nieman Reports, the Huffington Post, and Al-Monitor with features and op-eds.

Here are the four selected publications I authored or co-authored (click the covers to read):

I am also conducting Ph.D. research on media studies at Galatasaray University in Istanbul, titled “A Cross-Cultural Study on Trust and Taste in Digital Content Through User Experience.” I completed the Ph.D. r courses with a 3.86 GPA and passed all proficiency exams in June 2021.

Here are two academic articles that I have authored or co-authored:

“Breaking News: A Look Into Turkey’s Polarized Mobile News Notifications”, Peter Lang
“Evaluating One-Handed Usability of Phablets”, Springer

As a journalist at Turkey’s leading newspaper Hürriyet for more than 15 years, I interviewed presidents, prime ministers, and business leaders around the world. I wrote opinion articles for Hürriyet in Turkish and in English for more than 10 years.

I reported from Syria as the war started, I’ve been to Brussels for NATO’s key meetings, I was in San Francisco when same-sex marriage was legalized and I traveled to many other places from Berlin to New York to study the latest practices in New Media.

I am still not convinced that anywhere else can be as interesting as Istanbul.

As a media executive, I led large-scale corporate undertakings in multidisciplinary areas such as digital transformation, content strategy, and data analytics.

Both in business and academia, my main focuses of interest include measuring the value of user and content, choice architecture, building public trust through UX, analyzing digital communities, and change management.

With these focuses, I have managed teams ranging from five to more than 200 people from multiple disciplines in various corporate projects for the creation of innovative storytelling formats, designing new editorial metrics, and improving our content recommendation engine.

I believe that my strongest skills are creativity, adaptability, and collaboration.

As long as my children let me during my free time, I like writing short stories, reading Ottoman poetry, watching indie films, listening to Tom Waits, and playing Europa Universalis. Not simultaneously, if possible.

Before a career spanning more than 15 years, I was born in 1982, the year that some think as the end of the wonderful Generation X and the beginning of the pesky Millennials.

I believe in the future.