Role
UK
John is the Course Leader for NTU’s new Sports Journalism MA course that launches in September 2024.
He also teaches Sports Journalism and Podcasting to undergraduate students on both the BA Broadcast Journalism and BA Journalism degrees.
International
John is a Visiting Professor at the Communication University of China in Beijing where he is the Course Leader for NTU's MA in Broadcast Journalism.
He is also the International Lead for the Department of Journalism & Media.
Career overview
John has a BA in Political Science from the University of Birmingham as well as a PGDip in Radio Journalism and an MA in Broadcast Journalism from Nottingham Trent University.
He spent most of his media career as a radio journalist, working on local, regional and national stations as a reporter, news reader and sports commentator. He has also worked as the news editor for some of the UK’s biggest commercial radio stations. He has read the news, scheduled the music, devised the competitions or managed the newsrooms of stations as varied as Heart, LBC, Capital and Free Radio.
John worked as a reporter, producer and football, cricket and horseracing commentator for the BBC in the East and West Midlands for three years, prior to joining Nottingham Trent University in 2014. He still does this on an ad-hoc basis alongside his university responsibilities, working for the BBC in Nottingham, Derby and Stoke. He has also hosted a variety of programs for Nottingham’s local TV station Notts TV.
He also runs his own, small production company which specialises in creating education and business podcasts.
Watch John's profile video where he talks about his career and interests.
External activity
John is the co-author of Routledge’s The Radio Handbook, the UK’s default textbook for the study of audio and radio journalism.
In Summer 2023, he taught a Podcasting summer school at Toronto’s Humber College. Earlier in the year he was a contributor to a panel at the Broadcast Education Association’s annual conference in Las Vegas. Entitled “Pomp, Pageantry & Protocol”, the session analysed the British broadcast media’s coverage of the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
He has delivered media training for Marketing & Communications students at the University of Birmingham and provides freelance PR support for a variety of businesses and organisations. Prior to taking up his post at NTU, he was a Guest Lecturer for the London College of Communication and Birmingham City University as well as undertaking media training for BT, British Transport Police and Leicestershire County Council.
John has previously addressed the annual conferences of the Chartered Institute for Public Relations and PR Week magazine and was a speaker and contributor to the 2017 Sino-UK Creative Industry Education and Skills Collaboration Forum in both Ningbo and Beijing.
He also project managed the 2014 in 2014 charity campaign which raised just under £60,000 for the Motor Neurone Disease Association.
Press expertise
John has nearly 20 years’ on-air experience in both radio and television and has written for a variety of online, digital and print outlets. He can comment on topics relating to:
- Journalism
- Media
- Radio
- TV
- Social Media
- Charity / fundraising
- Twitter/X, Facebook & Instagram
- Sports commentary
- Coverage of election campaigns