U.S. journalist to teach Kazakhstan media use Twitter and Facebok

Journalism and social media expert Sonia Smith is visiting Astana on July 12-13. She plans to meet with graduates of U.S.-sponsored programs, journalists, editors and bloggers, Tengrinews.kz reports citing the U.S. Embassy in Kazakhstan. According to the embassy, the meeting is called to promote use of new social media tools in journalism. “Sonia’s lectures are aimed at giving journalists a full understanding of the many ways that Twitter and Facebook can be used in reporting and how social media sites can be used effectively by a news outlet. She will also introduce a wide array of digital storytelling tools for better reporting to the Kazakhstani journalists,” the embassy writes. Sonia Smith is an associate editor at Texas Monthly. She covers politics and manages the magazine’s accounts in social media. She is a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. She has also written for Slate Magazine, the Associated Press, the Kyiv Post, and the Dallas Morning News, and was a finalist for the 2008 Livingston Awards for Young Journalists. She lived and worked in Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Kiev and Samarkand.