ABOUT US

Since 2006, the BIR has been providing strikingly visual and deeply reported video news reports to national and international broadcast outlets, on behalf of an underserved viewing public. It was created by two long-time network news producers who recognized the diminishing supply of international news content on American television — in particular stories about places and topics that are considered falling outside breaking news headlines — and the name chosen to evoke the organization’s mission of recreating the once-robust system of foreign news “bureaus” around the world.

With the arrival of the global pandemic in 2020, the BIR has simultaneously turned its camera lens inward, focusing on more US domestic reporting yet preserving its dedication to stories on “overlooked” issues and communities, human rights and justice. This includes an increasing expertise on environmental and land rights topics and an expansion into digital, long form and other methods of delivering quality journalism to broad audiences.

Funded through individual donations and foundation grants, including from the Henry Luce and Ford Foundations and the Carnegie Corporation, the BIR has reported from five continents and 25 countries and created multiple "themed" series for PBS NewsHour and other national PBS brands; produced live and field content for CNN and CBS; and created long form documentary work for ABC/Disney streaming platforms, including Hulu. It also administers the GlobalBeat international reporting program for graduate students at New York University’s Arthur Carter Journalism Institute.

The BIR has won the Robert F. Kennedy Award in International Human Rights Journalism; an Emmy Award and several nominations including for best story of the year; an Edward R Murrow Award, among other professional recognitions.


KIRA KAY 
Kira began her career at ABC News, covering breaking news and creating longer-form news magazine pieces for PrimeTime Live, 20/20, World News Tonight and Nightline. After a decade, she moved to Southeast Asia on a Fulbright grant, where she developed an expertise in human rights and humanitarian  reporting. 

While in Asia she covered the civil war in Aceh Indonesia (where she later returned to cover the devastating tsunami), refugee issues in Thailand and Myanmar, the quest for justice in post-genocide Cambodia and consulted for the New York Times on its major PBS documentary “Indonesia: Struggle for the Soul of Islam.” 

Upon return to the US she continued to freelance, for CBS, CNN and New York Times Television, as well as numerous PBS shows, including the weekly public policy program NOW on PBS and the long-form documentary series Wide Angle. 

She received her Masters degree in Public Policy at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs, during which she traveled to Sierra Leone to examine post-conflict reconstruction as part of a UN-sponsored research team. Afterwards she was awarded a Pew Fellowship in residence at Johns Hopkins SAIS where she focused on terrorism in the Asia Pacific region. 

Kira was twice chosen for the prestigious Ferris professorship at the Princeton Humanities Council, during which she taught human rights reporting to undergraduates and took a group of honors students for in-field reporting in Bosnia. She is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the US-Japan Foundation Leadership Program.
JASON MALONEY  

Jason is the BIR’s main videographer and editor, but also drives a good majority of the organization’s story development and research. Before creating the BIR, Jason was a producer at New York Times Television, where he developed and served as editorial producer on a duPont Award-winning documentary on nuclear proliferation and the AQ Khan network. While there, he also produced investigative co-productions with Frontline. 

In the summer of 2004, he traveled to the Darfur region of Sudan to report for CBS 60 minutes; his footage became some of the first video evidence of atrocities committed within Darfur itself. The report was nominated for an Emmy and won the Edward R Murrow Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. 

During his five years at ABC News, his assignments took him from Siberia to Yemen to the deep south of the US. “The Unwanted Children of Russia” won the duPont, Overseas Press Club and RFK Awards. 

Jason holds a Bachelors from Dartmouth College and a Masters in International Relations from the London School of Economics. His first book, “Your America: Democracy’s Local Heroes,” was published by Palgrave-McMillan. 

He is a Clinical Professor at New York University’s Arthur Carter Journalism Institute, where he created and administers the GlobalBeat field reporting program and is currently the director of the Global and Joint Program Studies concentration.