Radio

Radio News & Current Affairs

Radio reporter, producer, presenter, editor, and web editor, I started out with the ABC in Melbourne as a court and police reporter.

Subsequently I worked several years both full-time and freelance in news and current affairs reporting. Then on moving to Europe, I worked with Deutsche Welle from the European Parliament and Council of Europe. At the Parliament, I was a producer, reporting for a network of UK stations. The issues were those being put out by British MEP’s – and high among them was Brexit. (I interviewed Farage many times as I did Scotland’s now First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon).

During stints back home, I reported on shows such as SBS The Europeans. But I also presented and edited radio news.

Paris Live AM presenter

More recently, I freelanced for the likes of Radio France International in Paris and Monocle London. At RFI, I was a producer, presenter and reporter. I was also the online news editor for a short while. More of my presenting clips from RFI current affairs shows can be heard on SoundCloud.

Reporting on the Paris 2015 terrorist attacks

For Monocle I have produced packages on news subjects such as the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks. My report focused on the community around the Bataclan district where the concert hall attack took place.

My voice sounds so sad in this report. Not surprisingly. On top of that, I had just signed on a Paris apartment – my first-ever home. It would have been easy to have had second thoughts … or wondered what on earth had I done. But no. Paris j’adore. Paris je t’aime.

A year later, I reported on a brighter subject – the cycling revolution in Paris. (Audio file on the Vélib‘ bike craze embedded in the image below.) 

But also on hospitality, architecture, design, travel, culture, books and style. All this while working with programs including The Globalist, The Urbanist and The Menu.

Urban life and design

How about surfing in Munich … Yes, in Munich

Journalism meets travel writing in this story on the surfing craze in Munich. Something I just stumbled upon serendipitously on a sunny Saturday morning stroll in the Bavarian capital. (Audio files embedded into the following pics.)

Lots of food and wine reporting from France

Monocle kindly sent me to Bordeaux in France to cover the opening of this Disneyesque kind of ‘Wine Land’, the Cité du Vin.

I produced a lot of stories for Monocle’s The Menu. Including this one on the budding foodie scene in the Oberkampf neighbourhood of Paris … A once ‘shabby arrondissement’ says food writer, Lindsey Tramuta. Funnily enough, Monocle has Lindsey down as the reporter here … but I won’t let them steal my thunder! It’s moi!

Voila, another foodie-led feature for The Menu on a French Abbaye hotel, run by an Englishman.

Urban life and design

Design and urban life subjects I have a real penchant for, in radio and print journalism. As they really go to the fibre of society, don’t they? The societies we’re building, whether in a good or bad way. Great architects are kind of gods. They have the world in their hands, literally. It’s future look.

Live from Paris to the world

When in Paris, I also do regular live crosses to radio stations around the world. From Ryk Goddard’s Breakfast Show on ABC Hobart in my home city to KCRW in California.

Through all this, I maintain a total radio passion. I love reporting, I love presenting – and I love listening. That’s what I do most of the time here in France, listening to BBC world news, and staying in touch with home via ABC Radio National shows. Among my faves are Patricia Karvelas on RN Breakfast, Claire Nichols on the Book Show, Paul Barclay’s (now Natasha Mitchell’s) Big Ideas and Larissa Behrendt on Speaking Out.

Not forgetting – and definitely last but not least – Phillip Adams and his “little wireless program”. I don’t know how I am going to cope when he soon leaves. He’s a radio legend and this show a part of my life like many others’ for decades. Radio is such a powerful connector, of time, place, people. And the ABC like the BBC is a pioneer.