A skilled and trained media professional with cutting edge marketing and copywriting abilities now available in Doha, Qatar for all your media needs including social media training
A Rookie Reporter’s name in print
I trained late in life to be a reporter, having always enjoyed writing, and then gained work experience on a national Irish paper the Irish Examiner in 2000 after completing the National Btec Diploma in Media with Journalism. I'll never forget seeing my name in print for the first time, it was so thrilling. I jumped out of bed and ran to the corner store to buy the paper, and there was my name in black and white on the bottom of page 5. I wished I kept that piece but in truth I have forgotten more by-lined articles I've written then I've kept. Although I love writing news pieces, following my nose to get a good story, I found my natural abilities lay in writing features. I was then retained by the Evening Echo in Cork as an in-house freelance feature writer.
This was a blissful job with directives such as spending the summer visiting tourist destinations and writing about them - from Mitchelstown Caves to Killarney I had a fabulous summer. However I also liked to tackle the gritty, hard hitting news stories and wrote about emotive subjects like elder abuse, AIDS, missing persons and date rape in a way that had not been tackled by the paper before. I occasionally stood in for the editor on a supplement called the Gates which focused on inner city news. I oversaw the complete production from splash to photos, commissioning content and writing much of it myself. I also had a regular weekly page covering my area of Glanmire. I then took over the newly launched Property Supplement, sourcing stories and monitoring the property market and writing the majority of the copy. These were halcyon days.
Hitting the Big Stories for nationals
As I enjoyed news reporting so much I was delighted to land the role of Southern Correspondent for the well read and respected Irish News in the north. I covered huge news events such as the resignation of Bishop Comisky over sexual abuse cover ups, Roy Keane walking out of the world cup in 2002, political corruption; deaths, rapes and car crashes as well as the impact of 9/11 were all news stories I covered for the paper. Also during this time I contributed full page features to the national broadsheet Irish Examiner as well as occasional contributions the Irish Daily Mirror.
A change in our family circumstances meant a change of location as we came home to Brighton. There my son started secondary school and my husband began a short term contract in Worthing that was to last five years. To succeed in the UK media I felt I needed to enhance my qualifications and I applied to do the NCTJ in Magazine Writing. This is a tremendously useful course and I recommend it, and the college, to anyone who wants a career in the media. This led to working on a temporary contract with Moonstone Films, an independent documentary film maker as an Investigative journalist, and to producing a ten minute news item for Channel 4 News which ran as their top story for the day. Over the past few years as a freelance journalist I have contributed features to the Guardian, Daily Mail, Telegraph, Daily Express, Irish Independent, Woman magazine and Psychologies.
Nothing pays off like hard work, persistence and transferable skills
I sourced, researched and pitched all my own ideas on a diverse range of subjects, although health and families features are my specialisation. More recently I have branched out into PR and copywriting and social media training utilising transferable skills such as media handling, pitching and writing creative copy to gain measurable results for clients. Since then I have promoted national charities in broadcast and print media, handling all aspects of the campaign from copywriting leaflets and flyers, to web copy and press releases. To date I have gained coverage for Maternity Worldwide and the Medical Foundation on BBC South, the Guardian, the Times and the Independent newspapers. In March 2010 I started a temporary contract with the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture to support their press and communications activities through a departmental reshuffle. As their Senior Press Officer I was responsible for increasing their profile and I liaised confidently with editors and producers on a national scale which facilitated a BBC documentary on the plight of asylum seekers and several pieces of national press coverage. I prepared media briefings for CEO and key members of staff and wrote press releases, newsletter copy, web features, trustee's reports and a weekly news roundup. I am currently the Editor of the Qatar Chronicle at WCMC-Q overseeing all editorial copy and writing press releases. I also continue to offer Online Social Media Training in Qatar and the Middle East region.
