Ayza Omar

Ayza Omar began her career as a junior reporter at Dawn News in 2006. She led a fruitful journey at the 24-hour Pakistani English-language news channel, covering local and provincial news. As an added bonus, her finance education enabled her to cover financial and economic news with an in-depth technical point of view.

Omar quickly made her way up the ladder and became the only full-time anchor at the Lahore bureau. She covered majority of the live and recorded programming at the station; most notably the Provincial Budgets (Year 2008 & 2009); the 2008 Pakistani Presidential Elections; Independence Day; the USA Presidential Elections; and International Women’s Day. She also anchored daily live news bulletins from Dawn News Headquarters in Karachi.

Omar was a key founding member in the longest and most popular current affairs show called ‘At Liberty’. More recently, she has co-produced and hosted one season of the traveling food show series, ‘For The Love Of Food’.

As a freelance journalist, Omar was Assistant Producer for a ‘Television for Environment’ documentary, ‘The Prince,’ which was aired on BBC in 2008. The film documented the journey of a young landlord’s mission to implement UN Millennium Development Goals in his village.

After three years of work experience in Pakistan, Omar is currently attending Columbia University’s MS Broadcast program on the U.S.A. Fulbright Scholarship in 2009. She further went on to win Madam Vivian Wu Yen Innovation fund scholarship from Columbia University. She was also appointed executive editor after her stint as managing editor of her class’ news website ‘NYC in Focus’ (www.nycinfocus.org).

Omar has enjoyed learning new video and writing techniques at Columbia University. Always a curious person, Omar feels journalism enables her love for learning and communicating new developments. Her future goals include undertaking theoretical/political studies, which would facilitate transitioning her political and international affair reporting to a world-class level.