MEET JULIAN

PERSONAL JOURNEY

I’ve spent decades as a reporter, editor, media trainer and speaker and am now using these skills to help journalists in this competitive era. A great deal of change is underway with AI or Artificial Intelligence and automation coming in. Journalists need to focus more on reliable data, and take care with the growth of misinformation – misinformation often being a buzzword for facts that governments would rather not see published. In this new and often confusing era, reporting the facts and staying true to the data matter more than at any time before.

LONG VARIED CAREER JOURNEY

During my long career, I have worked as a reporter and in managing editorial roles, working on three contents – Europe, Asia and Africa. I have covered wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, working for newspapers, radio and TV, including assignments in the field for CBS TV News and BBC News. I have worked in a range of positions – as staff and as a freelancer. This career journey has involved a range of jobs – from the lowly up to the position of managing editor of an Asia-wide news agency. I’ve worked in both the commercial world and NGO world. I am a recipient of an Amnesty International-Hong Kong Press Association award for my reporting.

This journey has been a mix of passion, hard work, and inventiveness, a combination that shows that if you put your mind to something and put in the effort, anything is possible.

ADVENTURES

I’ve traveled extensively in four of the world’s seven continents using a variety of transport.

My adventures include cycling across the Sahara desert alone, a year walking most of the length of the Himalaya mountain range on the Trans-Himalayan Expedition, a journey on foot with a Tuareg camel caravan across the Tenere desert, and months at a time walking the mountains of the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan during wartime.

These expeditions and journeys were done before the era of satellite phones and GPS and 24/7 internet connectivity. Those who go on adventures today, including people like Ed Stafford, Roz Savage and Alastair Humphreys, benefit from social media contact with their followers.

HELPING DISADVANTAGED COMMUNITIES

My wife and I are both on an exciting journey that sees us working with a range of interesting people, including beginning to roll out media training and how to leverage the internet for disadvantaged communities and communities just beginning to come online.

We are in the early stages of this but the training includes communications, video production, and journalism. I have a great deal of experience working with various ethnic and tribal groups in Asia and Africa – and some outreach to indigenous groups in North America.