Alfred Hermida is an award-winning online news pioneer and journalism educator. He is an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia School of Journalism, and a founding member of the award-winning BBCNews.com website.

He was a daily news editor for BBCNews.com for four years, during which time the site became widely recognized as an online news pioneer and one of the best news sites worldwide. Later, as technology editor for the website, he wrote extensively about trends in new media and was involved in the launch of a technology podcast.

Prof. Hermida joined the website after working in BBC radio and television national outlets, and after spending four years as a BBC foreign correspondent in the Middle East, covering military coups, presidential assassinations and the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. He worked as a journalist for the BBC for a total of 16 years.

In the summer of 2006, he joined the faculty of the graduate School of Journalism at the University of British Columbia to develop a new course in integrated journalism. It is designed to provide students with the skills they will need in the newsrooms of the future. The course focuses on innovative story-telling methods, looking at new styles of narrative that take advantage of the simultaneous use of text, hypertext, photos, audio, video and interactive elements.

He is also responsible for developing a new course in science journalism, which brings together journalism and science graduates. The course takes a critical look at the reporting of science and the challenges in covering such a complex and rapidly evolving area.

His research interests include the impact of digital communications technology on journalism and new multi-platform models of journalism education. Prof. Hermida is a frequent commentator in the media on leading Internet trends, such as the rise of social media and the role of citizen journalism, and writes on developments in digital journalism at Reportr.net.

Prof Hermida was the first internet journalist to be awarded a Knight-Wallace Fellowship by the University of Michigan.

Areas of research:
New media, interactivity, integrated journalism, multimedia, online news, blogging, podcasting, Web 2.0, citizen journalism, user-generated content, participatory journalism