ENGLISH

My name is Mahmud Farjami. I was born at 25 May 1977 in Mashhad, Iran. During my childhood, I loved reading books and always got the best grade in essay writing, which encouraged me to make wall newspapers singlehandedly and hang them on the wall of my schools for others to see. Later, I studied Computer Engineering in university, while pursuing other goals in journalism and communication sciences.

After I finished my engineering studies, I participated in the University graduate examination in Philosophy major. Thus in the year 2001, I left my hometown Mashhad for Tehran to study philosophy and at the same time officially started to work with media.

These were the early years of the internet in Iran; gradually, Persian media began to appear in the internet. Since I was among the few computer engineers familiar with journalism, I was invited to work with a Persian news web site in 2002. The site, named Baztab (baztab.com), soon turned into the most widely viewed news site in Iran. In addition to technical services I offered, I contributed to the site as a regular columnist until the last day it was operating when it was banned in 2007 by the Iranian government.

During the time I did my M.A. in Philosophy, I worked with various medias and was engaged in various jobs. When ilna.ir (the Iranian labor news agency) was launched, I was its secretary of cultural service for a time. I was in charge of some columns of very famous and reformist Shargh newspaper. I was the guest editor of one of the issues of Kheradnameh, a prestigious journal of Philosophy, which was devoted to internet-related philosophical and ethical issues. I also have produced and broadcasted a radio program “Tanz goftar”, which was a comprehensive investigation on humor and journalism.

I launched Debsh.com web site in 2003 along with a circle of reformist journalists. I was the editor of the bi-weekly Peyk-Bargh for a year.

Since 2005, I have been the official member of IFJ. I designed and launched the news site Fararu.com in 2005 and was manager of the site for about one year. Since then I have been contributing to it.

I wrote, directed, performed and edited more than 90 radio programs in my home studio in Tehran for the Holland-based Zamaneh radio. I have published a collection of short stories entitled Taxi driver, (Ney Publishers, Tehran, 2009).

In all these years, I offered consultation to various professional groups on how to launch online sites and journals. One of these sites is Dukht.com, the most popular Persian fashion site and Ayandenews.com, a professional Persian news website. Itanz.net is another website that I’m designer and editor in chief of it which helps people find or publish interesting social and plolitical humores in Farsi. I have contributed to various journals as a journalism (especially online journalism) critic.

From June 2010, I have been candidate for PhD degree at the school of journalism of USM in Malaysia. At know I live at Penang, Malaysia with my wife and son.