Authors and contributors

David Brewer is the founder and editor of Media Helping Media. He has worked as a journalist and manager in print, broadcast, and online. David was the UK editor for the launch of BBC News Online, becoming the managing editor soon after. Later he was appointed managing editor of CNN.com International EMEA where he set out the editorial proposition, hired staff, and oversaw the launch. David was the managing editor for the launch of CNN Arabic in Dubai, and a launch consultant for Al Jazeera English in Qatar. David has spent many years delivering journalism training worldwide, mainly in transition and post-conflict countries. He is currently mentoring journalists and editors of refugee and exiled media online as well as helping train journalists in countries where the media is still developing.

Bob Eggington has been a journalist since 1969. He has played a major part in the development of Media Helping Media helping fine-tune the editorial proposition as the site grew. Bob began in newspapers before joining the BBC where he worked for almost 30 years. In that time he was head of the BBC's political and parliamentary unit, the head of the BBC Monitoring Unit at Caversham, and the project director responsible for launching BBC News Online in 1997. He currently works as a media strategy consultant in the UK and overseas.

Anders Behrmann is a seasoned journalist and communications officer at the Fojo Media Institute (Linnaeus University). With more than 20 years of media experience, including roles as an editor and night manager, he now focuses on the intersection of journalism and technology. At Fojo, Behrmann leads training in AI for journalism, digital storytelling, and web development. He is also active in international development, notably teaching in Rwanda. Outside of media, he is a prominent figure in the fitness world, founding Sweden’s functional fitness federation.

Deepak Adhikari is a pioneering fact-checking journalist and the founding editor of NepalCheck.Org. He has previously led South Asia Check, specialising in digital investigation and transparency. Deepak is a specialist in combating disinformation. His work bridges professional reporting with media development, ensuring newsrooms are equipped with the digital tools necessary to uphold accountability and truth in a complex information landscape.

The author, John Allen, started in newspapers as a reporter and then a sub-editor. He joined the BBC in 1972 in the radio newsroom. John became Executive Editor of BBC Radio News in 1994. He collected a Sony award for BBC radio coverage of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. John died in 2021.

Author and journalist Jacob Jiel Akol was born in South Sudan. After university he worked for Radio Juba and later Sudan Television while also stringing for the BBC and the Guardian. Jacob was Africa Communication Director for World Vision International (WVI) before becoming the Director/Editor of Gurtong Trust Peace Media Project. He led the establishment of the Association for Media Development in South Sudan (AMDISS).

Chris Birkett is a media executive and consultant specialising in newsroom leadership and breaking news in TV, radio and digital. He has more than thirty years’ experience in senior positions at major news organisations and has been involved in multiple channel and product launches in Europe, the Middle East and India. He is the former Executive Editor and Deputy Head of Sky News and Managing Editor of the BBC News Channel. Chris is the author of Bill Clinton at the Church of Baseball.

John spent more than four decades gaining considerable all-round experience in the busy world of traditional newspaper journalism. He is a determined advocate of preserving the values of quality reporting which he believes must always begin with getting the basic skills right. After completing his education in his native UK by gaining a BA degree in humanities, he began his journalism career as a junior reporter on Britain’s only tri-weekly newspaper where he went on to undertake several senior roles before becoming a full-time sub-editor. This role eventually led to a job within the Trinity Mirror group as a regional sports editor overseeing content and design within a host of award-winning titles and implementing training schedules for young journalists. Having left full-newspaper work, John now writes for several UK music magazines and continues to use his subbing skills in the field of proof reading.

The author of this piece, Naomi Goldsmith, is a journalism trainer and media consultant. She has worked with the BBC, Internews, and Deutsche Welle and now trains journalists and media managers worldwide.

Pete Clifton was the Editor-in-Chief of the Press Association, the national news agency of the UK and Ireland, for 10 years up to the end of 2024. Previously, he was Editor of the BBC News website, the founding Editor of the BBC Sport website, and the Executive Producer of the MSN UK website. Now in semi-retirement, he has been a journalist for 44 years.

Philip Hilton is a radio consultant specialising in station sound. Since 1985 he has been involved as a presenter and producer in commercial and BBC radio. Philip is a radio trouble-shooter who specialises in building and maintaining station sound, ID commissioning, and managing and working with radio station staff to improve ratings.

Ruhina Akter, writing under the pen name Ruhina Ferdous, started her journalistic career at the Bangladeshi daily newspaper Prothom Alo. From there she moved to the daily newspaper Bonik Barta where she was a senior sub-editor in the editorial department. In 2023 she joined MRDI, the Media Resources Development Initiative, as a sub-editor for the Global Investigative Journalism Network, GIJN Bangla. Ruhina's achievements include the Konrad Adenauer Fellowship for Media and Communications, and OKP fellowships from RNTC in media campaigns for social change and digital media creations. She also completed a yearlong UN training on protecting women journalists and advancing women’s rights in shrinking democratic spaces in Asia. Ruhina holds a postgraduate diploma in film and television.

Gordana Igrić is the founder and Regional Network Director of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN). She began her career as a journalist in Belgrade in 1981. She reported from Bosnia and Kosovo during the wars that followed the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia. From 1998 to 1999, she worked in the field of human rights as Director of Research for the Humanitarian Law Centre (Belgrade), and Kosovo Researcher for Human Rights Watch (New York).

After leaving university, Tom Fort worked as a reporter at the Slough Observer and the Slough Evening Mail before joining BBC Radio as a sub-editor in 1979. He worked in the BBC Radio newsroom in London for 22 years. Tom left the BBC in 2000 and has since written a number of non-fiction books including The A303: Highway to the Sun, The Book of Eels and Rivets, Trivets and Galvanised Buckets: Life in the Village Hardware Shop.

Nicholas Jones has spent a lifetime in journalism. After starting on local evening newspapers, he joined The Times and then spent 30 years as an industrial and political correspondent for the BBC. He has written extensively on the way politicians and public figures seek to use and manipulate the news media. His books include Soundbites and Spin Doctors (1995), Sultans of Spin (1999), The Control Freaks (2001), Trading Information: Leaks, Lies and Tip-offs (2006), and The Lost Tribe: Whatever Happened to Fleet Street’s Industrial Correspondents (2011). Jones has also published a series of books examining the conduct and outcome of UK general election campaigns from 1992 to 2010, including Campaign 1997 which charted the rise of New Labour under Tony Blair. Jones is an honorary visiting professor at the School of Journalism at Cardiff University (awarded 2011) and holds an honorary doctorate at the University of Wolverhampton (awarded 2005). His archive of articles, speeches and books – and reflections on 65 years in journalism – is available at www.nicholasjones.org.uk

Jaldeep Katwala is the director of the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity at Birmingham City University. Until December he was the operations lead for The Bristol Cable and is still one of its directors. Prior to this, he was the network manager for the Public Interest News Foundation where he convened a vibrant community of independent news providers around the UK. Jaldeep was a BBC radio and television reporter and worked as a producer for Channel 4 News and as a presenter and documentary maker for Radio Netherlands International. He also led the undergraduate journalism degree course at Bournemouth University. Jaldeep has worked in media development roles in Serbia, Nigeria, Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Papua New Guinea, Southeast Asia and South Sudan.

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Vince Ryan has worked as a news sub-editor on national UK papers and as deputy editor at The Telegraph online and Al Jazeera English. He has also worked as a media strategist, introducing efficient workflows and content management systems for news output.

Marcus Tanner is an editor and trainer for the Balkans Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN. He was the Balkans correspondent for The Independent from 1988 to 1994, assistant foreign editor from 1995 to 2000 and returned there as part-time leader writer from 2006 to 2015. In 2006 he worked as an editor in Kyrgyzstan for IWPR. He was an editor for the British police inspectorate, HMICFRS, from 2015 to 2017. He has written a number of books on Croatia, Ireland, the Celts and Hungary, published by Yale university Press, and a biography of the Balkan explorer Edith Durham, published by Tauris.

Riz Khan is an international journalist, author, and public speaker recognised across the globe for having had flagship TV interview shows on CNN International and Al Jazeera English – of which he was a Founding Director.

Charles Ngidula is a lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam, School of Journalism and Mass Communication where he assists in coursework, research guidance, and practical applications. Beyond teaching, Charles is active in media operations at Mlimani Media, a media lab at the university. His research interests span digital media, AI (artificial intelligence), and environmental communication. He explores how machine learning optimises media efficiency while ensuring ethical AI use.

Richard Sambrook is Emeritus Professor of Journalism at Cardiff University in the UK. Previously he was Director of BBC News and the World Service having worked at the BBC as a journalist for 30 years. He helped launch several BBC News Channels, including Arabic and Persian, and as Head of Newsgathering for the BBC helped launch the BBC News Channel, BBC World News and the online news site. He is currently Chair of The Bureau of Investigative Journalism - a non-profit newsroom in the UK which partners with major news organisations and helps support local news organisations with investigations.

Nick Walshe has worked in TV newsgathering as a reporter, field producer, planner and assignments editor. Most recently he was responsible for Al Jazeera English's global newsgathering operation and also helped to manage their 24 bureaux. He was trained by the BBC in London and spent 10 years with ITN.

Jean-Paul Marthoz is a Belgian journalist and writer. He is a columnist for Le Soir (Brussels) and teaches international journalism at the Université Catholique de Louvain. He is the author of Couvrir les migrations (Reporting migration, 2013) and Terrorism and the Media: A Handbook for Journalists (UNESCO, 2017). He has been European press director for Human Rights Watch and EU correspondent for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Igor Petriska is the Head of Development and Infrastructure at Petit Press, one of Slovakia’s most prominent media houses and the publisher behind the leading news portal SME.sk. A key figure in the company’s digital transformation, Petriska has been instrumental in modernizing the publisher’s legacy systems and moving operations toward a cloud-first infrastructure. He notably spearheaded the development of an innovative, open-source Digital Asset Management (DAM) system in partnership with the Google News Initiative, a project aimed at streamlining content production and distribution for newsrooms. Through his leadership in technical development, Petriska focuses on building flexible, interoperable platforms that enhance productivity and ensure the economic sustainability of independent journalism in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.

Patrice started his publishing career as a journalist reporting from conflicts in Central Asia at the end of the 1980s. Before joining MDIF in 2002, within the AOL Time Warner Group he served as Managing Director of Netscape Europe overseeing its European operations. In 1998, before joining AOL Time Warner, Patrice was a Senior Adviser for the World Economic Forum (The Davos summit). From 1994 to 1998 he was Deputy Managing Director at Hachette Filipacchi Medias – the leading French publishing group and owner of Elle, Paris Match and other internationally renowned magazines. In 2021, Patrice co-initiated Plūrālis - a €100-million blended capital vehicle aimed at providing mission-aligned capital for pluralism to keep media companies editorially independent and financially viable in Council of Europe countries.

Dr. Claire Wardle is a leading expert on social media, user generated content, and verification. Her research sits at the increasingly visible and critical intersection of technology, communications theory, and mass and social media. Dr. Wardle is the co-founder and leader of First Draft, the world’s foremost nonprofit focused on research and practice to address mis- and disinformation.

TP Mishra was the founder and editor of the Bhutan News Service and has more than 20 years experience in journalism as a writer, reporter, and editor. He is one of the original members of the Media Helping Media network.

Don Ray started in journalism in 1977. Since then he has worked as a multimedia investigative reporter, an editor, producer, photographer, videographer, and columnist. He has worked in television news, for print and online, as well as running his own news agency. Don is the author of six books on topics including interviewing for broadcast, writing, investigative techniques, document interpretation and checking out lawyers. In recent years Don has travelled extensively training journalists in regions where the media is still developing. Don is currently writing books and working on documentary projects.

Sebastian is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose credits include One Breath and the BAFTA-nominated film The Eagle Huntress. His passion for fostering emerging talent led to the creation of the Documentary Film Academy, an online community and educational platform designed to empower the next generation of filmmakers.

The author, Beat Witschi, has worked in various roles and capacities for print media, radio, TV and the internet. Companies he has worked for include CNN International, CNN.com, Swissinfo (Swiss Broadcasting Corporation) , BBC World Service and Al Jazeera English.

This piece is an edited version of a chapter from the Election Reporting Handbook which was produced in May 2003 by the IFJ, the International Federation of Journalists. The handbook was produced with the support of the European Commission and the Danish Foreign Ministry (DANIDA).

The News Manual was first published as a three-volume book with assistance from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and was aimed initially at journalists working in developing countries. It was designed to be a straightforward, no-nonsense guide and for many years it has been a standard text in newsrooms across the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.

Journalists Ted Bottomley and Anthony Loftus published A JOURNALIST'S GUIDE TO THE USE OF ENGLISH in 1971. It was revised and adapted for Media Helping Media by Ted's son, John, also a journalist. It's reproduced here with the permission of the Express & Star Group.

This article has been produced by the Media Helping Media (MHM) team using original content submitted by members of the MHM network who have generously given permission for their work to be shared on the site. It is an example of collaborative journalism.