I am an independent trainer and consultant specialising in websites. I run tailored writing courses and coaching for a variety of clients. I’m the author of Writing for the Web (Chambers Desktop Guides) and am responsible for most of the editorial work of the Select Ideas website consultancy. I developed the BBC’s web writing courses and for twelve years provided BBC Training (now known as the BBC Academy) with regular web writing and basic writing courses.
Recent contracts
For more than twenty years, I worked with the commercial writing company Clarity, providing writing courses to banks, insurance companies and consultancies, as well as individual coaching.
Online training modules
I wrote modules for BBC World Service Training’s online courses for journalists. I also wrote and edited modules for World Press Photo’s online training courses for photojournalists around the world.
Radio and television training
As part of the British government’s support for reform of primary health care in Georgia, I ran a radio training course in Tbilisi for NGOs working in health promotion. I have written, with Hazel Slavin, a manual for radio and television producers in Yemen as part of a family planning project funded by the European Commission. On behalf of BBC World Service Training, I ran a project of training and support to Indian broadcasters making programmes on reproductive health, a five-year programme of training for the government radio and television in Thailand, and a series of workshops on radio journalism for independent local stations in Poland.
BBC career
I was a BBC journalist for 20 years. In my last post, as Deputy Editor of World Service News, I was responsible for recruiting and training journalists and for editorial standards, including producing the newsroom Style Book. I joined the World Service in 1974 and reported from Portugal during the revolution. As well as working as a desk editor, my assignments included covering two British general elections and working as a special correspondent in South America, after which I became Deputy Head of the Latin American Service. I also reported from Angola and Mozambique, and represented the BBC in visits to Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Cuba, Venezuela and the USA.
Qualifications
I hold a User Experience Certificate from the Nielsen Norman Group. I’m an alumna of Henley Management College (now the Henley Business School), having completed a General Management Programme in 1993. I graduated from Oxford University in 1969 in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, and spent three years teaching History, English and French (obtaining a Dip.Ed. from Southampton) before deciding to be a journalist.