Staff Profile

  • Kate Ironside is a former political journalist, with 26 years experience in industry. She worked for the Reading Evening Post, Central Press, the Daily Express, Western Morning News and BBC Westminster. She spent two years reporting local government, 13 years at Westminster and 17 years writing an award-winning column on the European Union. Today she combines teaching, with regular contributions to the BBC, commentating on national politics. Kate sits on the executive board of the Broadcast Journalism Training Council, which accredits our journalism courses, and organised the nationwide reporting of the general election results by BJTC students across the UK in 2015, 2017 and 2019.

  • Kate teaches public affairs, law, media regulation and practical reporting. She has won awards for her university teaching. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

  • Kate’s research centres on public affairs and media regulation. She is the author of Reporting Power, the official textbook on public affairs of the Broadcast Journalism Training Council, now on its third edition.

  • Closing Time at the Last Chance Saloon: Phonehacking and the future of press regulation in Breaking The News, ed: Gordon, Rowinski, Stewart

     (2013) Lang

    Public lectures:

    Teaching Media Law, BJTC conference, 2018

    Fake News, Donald Trump & the Media, March 2017, University of Bedfordshire

    Bombing Isis in Syria, joint lecture with Vice-Chancellor & former Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell and Shahad al-Imrah, November 2015, University of Bedfordshire

    Je suis Charlie: Ethics for Journalists and Society, 1January 2015, University of Bedfordshire

    Reporting the 2015 General Election: chair of two panel discussions, BJTC partners days May and July 2015.

    “Preparing for the TEF”, Association of Media Practice Academics, Birmingham City University, July 2015

    Phonehacking: the challenge Media & Politics Association conference November 2012

     “Don’t Panic? The Eurozone crisis,” keynote speaker, European Movement, Exeter February 2012

     “The Future of Europe,” European Movement, Plymouth, November 2010 with fellow panelists Sir Graham Watson MEP and Sir Cyril Townsend.

    “Reporting Europe,” Keynote speaker, European Movement, Exeter, March 2009