Mr Patrick Stoddart

Adjunct Associate Professor of International Journalism and Media

As a reporter and feature writer Patrick Stoddart has covered wars and royal weddings, fatal accidents and film festivals, murder trials and mass demonstrations and interviewed prime ministers and princes, pop stars and film legends, criminals and crime victims.

He has written short histories of the IRA and the Korean War and carried out investigations into the drug trade, religious cults and insurance scams, and was an early champion of environmental journalism.

He began his career on local and regional newspapers before moving to Fleet Street in the early 70s to join The Evening News, at the time the world’s largest evening paper. He reported from Derry at the height of the IRA Troubles and covered the IRA mainland bombing campaign before moving on to become a senior feature writer and columnist.

Following the closure of the Evening News Stoddart became acting editor of Broadcast magazine and enjoyed a few years writing and presenting radio and television series for BBC Radio 4, C4 and ITV before joining The Sunday Times as media editor and TV critic – a post he held for eight years before leaving to become launch editor of a new Daily Telegraph media supplement. Following that he founded his own consultancy, acting as an advisor to the BBC, ITN, Reuters and Richard Branson’s Virgin Radio, and working as head of factual programming development for a leading independent producer. He also wrote both drama and comedy scripts for a number of ITV companies.

In the mid 1990s Stoddart was creator and editorial director of News World, an annual conference for the international broadcast news industry and the first forum to consider such issues as the impact of live scene-to-screen reporting, hostile environment training for news crews in war zones and the responsible management of internet news.

Before coming to Richmond University Stoddart was senior lecturer in journalism practice at The University of Westminster.

Newspapers

• The Watford Observer
• Hertfordshire Evening Echo
• Evening News
• The Sunday Times
• The Times
• The Daily Telegraph
• The Daily Mail
• The Daily Express
• Broadcast magazine

Broadcasting credits

• Writer/presenter, Breakaway (BBC R4)
• Writer/presenter, Channel 4 Daily
• Writer/presenter, Travelog (C4)
• Writer/presenter, The Video Age (ITV)
• Writer/presenter, Between the Lines (ITV)
• Writer/narrator, Survival Special (ITV)
• Presenter, Not For Women Only (ITV)
• Presenter, London Tonight (BBC Radio London political talk show)
• Creator/producer, It’s Your Funeral (C5)
• Co-creator/writer, Rules of Engagement (ITV)
• Writer, BAFTA Film and TV Awards (ITV)

Organisations

• Member, Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House
• Member, Royal Television Society
• Member, Media Society
• Member, Broadcasting Press Guild

Awards

• Young Regional Feature Writer of the Year
• Feature Writer of the Year
• Member, Newspaper Design Team of the Year
• Television Critic of the Year