What was your first job as a journalist?
I was a regular on a hospital radio show in the early 1990s
Have you ever used a typewriter?
Yes, AND we even used real cut and paste to build the Medical Student Magazine I was editor of!
How is social media changing news?
Social media IS the News now. Twitter in particular is quoted more often than press releases it seems these days.
Who's your favorite fictional journalist?
Does Erin Brockovich (Julia Roberts) count? Or if not can I have C.J. Cregg (Allison Janney)?
What does it mean to be a journalist?
A journalist takes a complicated truth and makes it comprehensible to a community of non-experts. Doctors and preachers are journalists too!
How do you prefer to be pitched on stories?
By email. These days I am beginning to do more video interviews to post on the blog and podcast. Takes less of my limited energy to talk
What's your favorite social network?
Twitter
Why did you become a journalist?
To me its still just a hobby and yet it is in my bones and in a way I have used journalistic skills in all my jobs and writing.Its part of me
What story are you most proud of writing or working on?
What advice can you offer to aspiring journalists?
Use social media to help you find a unique voice and an audience.
What's your favorite drink?
Red wine especially if its drank with steak or as a stark religious reminder of blood being spilled. It symbolises both joy and pain.
When you're not at a computer, where are you most likely to be?
On a smartphone!
Aside from your own, what's your favorite publication to read?
The Coronavirus Newscast / Brexitcast (I know its a podcast not something to read but isn't that the future?)
What's the most common misperception about your beat?
That I am just yet another Bible Basher.
