Zulekha Nathoo (zoo-LAKE-ah NUH-thoo) is an award-winning broadcast and digital journalist based in Atlanta, Georgia. She’s a producer and host for USA Today’s Humankind, which features uplifting stories for broadcast, digital and social media channels — your antidote to doom-scrolling. Before joining the team, she contributed to multiple publications including BBC Worklife, writing evidence-based articles about inclusion, inequality and workplace culture.
Zulekha previously worked in Los Angeles as a TV, radio and online correspondent for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Her ability to jump between entertainment and breaking news meant covering stories ranging from the Oscars and Grammy Awards to the pandemic, racial inequality and the #MeToo movement. She was part of CBC’s special coverage team for the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the death of Kobe Bryant and the Harvey Weinstein verdict in New York.
Her work has garnered numerous awards, including a U.S. National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award for a story about accessibility and gaming. She earned a Southern California Journalism Award in radio/podcast feature reporting for a story about body image in the music industry. A long-form podcast episode she produced about COVID and grief won both a Golden Crane Podcasting Award and an Atlanta Press Club Award. She scored another Atlanta Press Club Award for a BBC feature she wrote about misidentifying people of colour, which is now included in the curriculum at Carleton University’s Journalism and Belonging course. Zulekha accepted a fellowship with the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations in 2013 which took her to the Middle East and she also worked in Nairobi, Kenya for a year as a media fellow with the Aga Khan Foundation. Her Arabic and Swahili are (slow) works in progress.
Originally from Canada, Zulekha worked on-air in Toronto before moving to the U.S. She also worked as a multimedia journalist in Calgary (her hometown) and Montreal, doing her own camera work and editing. She’s fluent in French and began her TV career in the bilingual town of Bathurst, New Brunswick. She got her start at the London Free Press while completing her Master of Arts in Journalism at Western University in London, Ontario. Zulekha also holds a bachelor’s degree in history with a minor in criminology from the University of Ottawa.
Zulekha, whose family emigrated from East Africa during a time of civil unrest, mentors young journalists of colour and served as a volunteer to help aspiring reporters in conflict zones learn the basics of the craft. She contributed inspiring essays to the upcoming She Series book and wrote the opening chapter in a motivating anthology for young people, Making It in High Heels 3: Innovators and Trailblazers. Zulekha is raising a son with her journalist husband and continues to travel the world, explore delicious foods, practice her Spanish and in her down time, perfect her favourite yoga position — corpse pose.
Zulekha Nathoo 