Sahan Journal’s CEO to Step Down
One of the more impactful young leaders in local journalism is calling it a day, for now. Mukhtar M. Ibrahim, CEO and publisher of the news org Sahan Journal, has decided to leave the nonprofit he founded in 2019 to be more present with his family.
“I’ve got four young kids, the youngest being just four months old,” he explained. “I founded Sahan Journal for the community and based on what I know about the organization, it felt like the right time.” (Mukhtar came to Minnesota in 2005 from Somalia and holds journalism degrees from the University of Minnesota and Columbia University.)
Sahan’s newsroom has a mission of placing the region’s communities of color at its center, covering those communities from a place of deep understanding and trust (rather than the hit-and-run approach most major news orgs tend to use, cycling reporters through beats every year or so). It operates with a staff of 20, two-thirds of them journalists, and a budget of $2.5 million, raised through a mix of philanthropy, advertising, sponsorships, memberships, and even job ads. Sahan has generated nearly $10 million in fundraising and revenue in less than five years.
“We have proven this can be done, keeping diverse communities of color at the center of journalism about them, and others should be doing it,” Mukhtar said in an interview with TCB.
He is particularly proud of building a workplace culture that is distinct and different from the norm in the profession: “I wanted it to be the best place to work: transparent, engaged—organizational values I wish I came up with.” Mukhtar, 35, spent the formative years of his career at Minnesota Public Radio, which was one of Sahan’s early funders.
Veteran MPR journalist Kate Moos, quoted in a news release issued by Sahan, said, “Mukhtar had a great idea at a pivotal moment in journalism: to create stories born out of the knowledge and experiences of immigrants and people of color in Minnesota, rather than the knowledge and experience of people sitting behind desks in white-led newsrooms.”
Sahan has a staff of pedigreed journalists and has forged ties with important national journalism forces like ProPublica.
A search firm will soon begin work on finding Mukhtar’s successor. He hopes it focuses on individuals with deep roots in journalism, but also management and fundraising skills. Mukhtar says he will be using his professional pause to also complete an MBA at the U of M’s Carlson School of Business.
