What was your first job as a journalist?
Work experience at the Bath Chronicle - before wining an apprenticeship at the same group (Westminster Press) for the Watford Observer
Have you ever used a typewriter?
Yes! I've wanted to write for as long as I can remember. On my 9th birthday my parents bought me a second-hand typewriter.
How is social media changing news?
Increases its immediacy; impacts the story directly - can change what happens.
Who's your favorite fictional journalist?
Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan (The Help)
What does it mean to be a journalist?
To tell the truth - however painful - and ditch the sugar coating.
How do you prefer to be pitched on stories?
Former TV producer/ historian
What tools and software do you use to do your job?
Laptop. British Newspaper Library Archive. National Archives, Imperial War Museum reading rooms. British Library. NARA
What's your favorite social network?
Twitter
Who do you wish followed you?
Idris Elba
Why did you become a journalist?
Wanted to write, meet people and tell interesting stories.
Did you work for your high school newspaper? If so, what did you do there?
Review plays (at Uni)
What story are you most proud of writing or working on?
An American Uprising - the story of why a unit of African American servicemen mutinied in Launceston, Cornwall, in 1943
What advice can you offer to aspiring journalists?
Learn to drive. You will be wide open to all opportunities then.
When's the best time to pitch you?
Between 10am and 2pm
What's the best pitch you ever got?
Commission on second book Black Yanks: Defending Leroy Henry in D-Day Britain
What's the worst pitch you ever got?
Story of a sex-pest gynaecologist for C4 News and then having how to figure out how to do a reconstruction/ specially shot around interviews.
What's your favorite drink?
Cremant/Estrella - depending on the weather
When you're not at a computer, where are you most likely to be?
Walking my dog - or driving my children
Aside from your own, what's your favorite publication to read?
The Times
What's the most common misperception about your beat?
British were racist towards African American servicemen stationed in the UK in WW2
