Initially more Homer Simpson than John Simpson, I cut my teeth (they still hurt) on the news rooms of ABC News in the UK and worldwide, including a stint as their Asia Producer, managing their regional Asia operations from their Beijing HQ. With great support from friends and colleagues I tried my arm as a one-man-band guerrilla video-journalist, heading to corners of the world where others didn’t want to go. There was good reason why no one else wanted, and why some colleagues were keen to send me off to these parts of the world, but sadly I was often too stupid to realise why I often found myself alone. Because I could rarely find anyone mentally impaired enough to join me, I learnt to do everything – to shoot, write, report, produce and/or direct – and became another jobbing journo, knew a little about a little, but a master of nothing.

My specialism was inspired by Channel 4’s Unreported World – what I think is still some of, if not the best broadcast international investigative reporting – and in part from a frustration in mainstream news media. Instead I now focus my energies on identifying and reporting on stories that often don’t make the headlines, but remain important for the world to know. I combined my expeditioning experience to go places and report on the unreported – whether its from the jungle HQ of the Kachin Independence Army in Northern Burma, or heading deep into the Sahara to find evidence of ongoing chattel slavery or even filming in Al Qaeda gun-markets – it’s at these places for some reason, currently unknown to others, that I seem to be at most effective. At home in the UK, I remain at large, but largely ineffective.

I have reported for a smogasbord of channels including ABC, Al Jazeera English and most excitedly fulfilling a dream and working with Uneported World, produced by the brilliant team at Quicksilver. I have been nominated and short-listed for Best Current Affairs Programme 2008 (Asian TV Awards), US Livingstone Award for Young Journalists, Emmy’s and Overseas Press Awards., but of course, have yet to win anything.

10 Difficulties whilst trying/learning to be a journalist

1. Confronting illegal timber smugglers on the China-Burmese borders (whilst filming undercover with the Kachin Independence Army)
2. Being threatened by the Mutaween (religious police) for filming a car whilst documenting the rise of Islamist fundamentalism (Saudi Arabia).
3. Filming undercover with human traffikers in brothels along the Chinese-North Korean borders.
4. Confronting slave masters in the Sahara (Niger and Mauritania)
5. Crashing my 4X4 in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve whilst documenting the plight of the San Bushmen (Botswana)
6. Being detained by Chinese police etc too many times. (China)
7. Finding out the two men I was interviewing were wanted for armed robbery of the last TV crew that tried to film them (South Africa).
8. Stumbling upon a cocaine cartel who were pretending to breed reptiles as a cover for their production/smuggling. (Nicaragua)
9. Being arrested and imprisoned on charges including espionage (Mongolia)
10. Crashing a skidoo with an angry cameraman on the back whilst trying to keep up with Sami Reindeer herders (Sweden)