Broadcast
At a training day for press officers that I recently attended, a Guardian journalist reminded us that his editors are desperate for more “experts” to write for the website, particularly by penning blogs and opinion pieces.
Jacqui Bealing,
Senior Press Officer
Many Sussex academics are already taking advantage of such opportunities to reach a wider audience.
For example, this month Professor Andrea Cornwall wrote two ‘Poverty Matters’ blogs for the Guardian (5 and 21 March) related to her research in anthropology, while anti-corruption expert Dr Dan Hough’s take on this week’s “cash for access” scandal currently rocking the Conservative party became a blog for New Statesman (27 March), as did Professor Mariana Mazzucato’s response to George Osborne’s budget (19 March).
Both Mariana and Dan have been sought out by more traditional media, too, with Dan being interviewed by the BBC’s World Service (21 March), Guardian Education (20 March) and the Times Higher Education (15 March) to talk about his new Centre for the Study of Corruption, while Mariana joined a discussion on Sky News (22 March) to analyse the budget.
Also in the news; Professor Louise Morley’s study revealing the global problem of the lack of women leaders in universities was reported in the THE (23 March), and then picked up by University World News (26 March); Dr Stefanie Ortmann gave her first media interview to BBC Sussex (5 March), commenting on Putin’s re-election in Russia; and Professor Alan Winters gave his analysis to the BBC World Service on why China is defending its restrictions on the export of scarce minerals.
On TV, our statistics expert Dr John Haigh tried to explain to the viewers of BBC One’s ‘Watchdog’ (15 March) about how much water is lost by water companies through leaks, and students celebrating the paint-wearing Hindu festival of Holi made a colourful item on ‘Meridian Tonight’ (9 March).