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Kate Watkins

Kate Watkins

  • Position: Director of TV News Training
  • Areas of expertise: journalism; media; television; multimedia; employability; placements; work experience; personal and professional development
  • Email: K.Watkins@leeds.ac.uk
  • Phone: +44(0)113 343 8376
  • Location: 1.04 Clothworkers' North
  • Website: Twitter

Profile

I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a former News Editor of Look North, the BBC regional news programme for Yorkshire. After graduating from Oxford University, I started my career at the Sheffield Star newspaper, before joining the prestigious BBC News Trainee scheme. I worked for BBC TV for almost two decades, at the BBC One O'clock and the BBC national Weekend News, and in Leeds, Manchester and Nottingham. I won two Royal Television Society awards for programmes I produced on the Bradford riots and the nanny Louise Woodward who was jailed in the US for murder, plus various awards for Look North and Northwest Tonight. I have also written for Supernanny magazine and featured in The Guardian newspaper's Family section for a year.

I joined the department as School of Media and Communication as Director, TV News Training, in January 2007 and was Programme leader for the Broadcast Journalism degree, then Undergraduate Tutor and Alumni Officer . I am now Employability Lead for the School and a member of the  Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures faculty employability group.I was awarded  a University Student Education Fellowship , after devising the highly successful Media Futures  events and workshops, offering weekly personal and profesional development for students  (see http://media.leeds.ac.uk/events/ and add the Media Futures filter)

In May 2014 , I was awarded the University's best Personal Tutor in the Partnership Awards, and have been nominated  in each  successive years by students from the department.

  

 

Responsibilities

  • Employabiity lead for the School of Media and Communication

Research interests

I am the co-recipient of a Leeds Institute for Teaching Excellence teaching enhancement project looking at non-engagement in employability. 

<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Any research projects I'm currently working on will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>

Qualifications

  • Senior Fellow Higher Education Academy
  • NCTJ trained journalist

Student education

I  teach all three years of  the Journalism programme. I introduce first years to journalism skills and give  an insight into the media. In the second year of study, I teach students how to create live Television news.This leads to a third year module in which students engage in newsdays, where teams produce multimedia news output to a prfessional broadcast deadline.. I place each Journalism student with a media employer for three weeks in the summer of their second year, leading to a placement module reflecting on their work in the industry. I also supervise the final year project for TV,.