ICS CAREERS DAY
WEDNESDAY 6 FEBRUARY - GUEST BIOGRAPHIES
3-4 Speakman Lecture Theatre
Getting a job in Journalism
Panel Chair: Dr Adrian Quinn, Lecturer in Broadcast Journalism
Panellists:
Fergus Bell, Associated Press
John Sutton, Trinity Mirror
Robin Perrie, The Sun
Dave Betts, Sky
Mikaela Barwick, Picture researcher, Sky news
Ellie Henman, Bauer Media
Richard Main, BBC freelance
Fergus Bell: Social Media and UGC editor (international), Associated Press
Fergus, a graduate in Broadcast Journalism, joined the Associated Press six years ago as a
news assistant on the television news desk in London and worked his way up to senior
producer. Since April 2011 he has focused on social media newsgathering. Besides the Arab
Spring, he has used social media to aid the AP’s newsgathering operations and source usergenerated content (UGC) for the shootings in Norway and the Japanese earthquake. Bell
recently was named a winner of AP's highest staff honour, a $10,000 Oliver S. Gramling
Achievement Award, for his pioneering work in the area of UGC.
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Robin Perrie: North East reporter, The Sun
Robin was editor of Leeds Student from 1989/90. He then worked as a news reporter for
three years on the Morley Observer, a weekly newspaper based near Leeds. This was
followed by two years as a reporter at the Yorkshire Evening Post, before getting his current
job as the North East reporter for The Sun, a job he has enjoyed for 17 years now.
Robin covers all the major news stories in the North East and Cumbria such as the Raoul
Moat manhunt and the Derrick Bird massacre. He is also sent off patch to help out with
major stories in other areas , e.g. the Shannon Matthews abduction in Yorkshire. He is
sometimes sent abroad and covered the Chinese earthquake in 2008 and the Japanese
Tsunami in 2011.
Robin said: “The Sun being The Sun, there is also the chance of being at the heart of a lighthearted story - dressing up as a monkey to doorstep the new Mayor or Hartlepool (whose
previous job was the local football club's mascot) or stripping off to interview the Naked
Rambler, a man who insisted on wearing no clothes to hike from Land's End to John
O'Groats and who therefore kept getting arrested!”
John Sutton: Video journalist, Trinity Mirror Regionals
After graduating from Leeds in 2006 with a degree in English, John did several casual jobs
before packing his bags and heading to Newcastle-upon-Tyne for the Press Association's
training course. This sixteen-week introduction to becoming a reporter set a fire in his belly
and got him his first job at the Evening Gazette in Middlesbrough.
After two years he returned to his native North West to work on the Liverpool Echo, where
amongst other things he spent time on a warship as armed forces correspondent and had a
(nearly!) front row seat at the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. He now works
almost exclusively as a video journalist for Trinity Mirror Regionals, producing content for
the Liverpool Echo, Manchester Evening News and Liverpool Post.
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Dave Betts: Senior Home News Editor and Editorial Development Manager,
Sky News
Dave is a Leeds lad. After leaving his Geography degree at Keele University, he took a one
year radio course at Darlington College of Technology. His first job was as a reporter at
Viking FM in Hull. During his career, Dave has also worked for Yorkshire TV, Reuters, GMTV
and various BBC outlets, including Radio 4, Radio 1 and as editor of BBC Look North in Hull.
Dave currently combines two jobs at Sky News. He is one of a team of senior news editors,
who cover the home desk in shifts from 0600 to 2100. He leads a team of 2 news editors, an
assignments editor, 2 satellite operations supervisers, around 30 reporters / fixers /
correspondents, a dozen cameras and 14 satellite trucks with live cameras. Dave is also in
charge of training at SkyNews and sits on the board of the Broadcast Journalism Training
Council (which accredits the University of Leeds’ Broadcast Journalism programme).
Mikaela Barwick: Picture Researcher, Sky News
After graduating from the Broadcast Journalism programme, Mikaela got her foot in the
door in by working as what she describes as a "tape monkey". That meant she was in charge
of ingesting archive footage tapes onto the server for producers and journalists, for their
packages. She was also freelancing as a weekend sports producer for Sky News Sport,
writing scripts, and editing pictures for the hourly rundowns.
She was then promoted to a Sky News Picture Researcher and joined the Sky News
Mentoring Scheme. Through the scheme, she will have a one month secondment to Sky
News Radio this year and started shadowing the Live @ 5 producing team in January.
Ellie Henman: Intern, Closer magazine
On graduation, Ellie worked full time in a bar before managing to get an unpaid seven
month internship in parliament working as a diary secretary and communication strategist.
During this time she worked in London for three days and then in a bar in Leicester for four
to afford to do it.
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Upon leaving, Ellie was unable to find a job so applied for a MA and was accepted at
Goldsmith’s – it seemed like the next best progressive step. Sadly, she was unable to
continue due to financial reasons so went back to working full time in a bar at night and full
time in internships during the day.
Through these applications Ellie was accepted, very luckily, onto a TV programme The
Exclusives and now has a year long traineeship with Bauer Media. So far she has worked for
Heat and More. She is now a freelance for both magazines at night and at the weekends
and is currently working at Closer magazine.
Richard Main: BBC London radio 94.9.
After graduating in the summer of 2010 Richard did his best to carve out a career in the
media backwaters of East Anglia. Having reqcquainted himself with BBC Radio Suffolk,
where he had fulfilled a range of roles from sports reporter to Pudsey Bear during his teens,
he began freelancing as a drive time producer and reporter at BBC Radio Norfolk.
This led to a spell at BBC Radio Leicester, a few weeks at Look North and shifts spent reading
news bulletins for six different commercial stations; rather conveniently all six were based in
a converted warehouse outside Ipswich. After finally getting sick of being the only Ipswich
Town fan in the Norwich newsroom, Richard upped sticks to London in April 2012, where he
has since been fortunate enough to work on BBC London 94.9's coverage of the mayoral
election, the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and this summer's Olympics.
In the last 10 months he has also continued to freelance at BBC Radio Kent and BBC Sussex
& Surrey where he has just completed a stint as their breakfast producer. Wednesday 6th
Feb should be Richard’s third day of his new contract back at BBC London, but he is sure
they'll understand it is all for a good cause!
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