“When I started it, the whole idea was to try and make some sense of what was happening and also because we were afraid. For once I was sitting inside the event but this time, I knew I was going to be inside the story too.”
Today I’m joined by author and broadcaster Carole Coleman. Carole is an Irish journalist and is currently a presenter of This Week on Irish state broadcaster’s RTÉ Radio One. In 2021 Carole published News from Under a Coat Stand which was her personal account of working from home during the Covid-19 pandemic. I had been planning to chat with Carole for a while, but we never manged to tie down a good time until now, so I hope you are sitting comfortably and happy to stay with us.
The episode kicks off with a chat about how much we forgot about life under the Covid-19 pandemic (01:25) and Carole’s motivation behind writing the book (02:13). I then asked her about the importance of publishing books and not just leaving it to social media to account for such important times (06:16). We then moved on to why Carole decided to take on a career in journalism (08:36), her beginnings in broadcast radio (10:50), and accepting the role of US correspondent for RTÉ (14:15). Carole then went on to talk about her infamous interview with President George Bush (22:20), the importance of gender balance in radio (27:03), and how working life spans will need to change in the near future (28:28). Towards the end of the episode, we discussed the development of technology in radio (30:52), the work behind self publishing (37:15), and what Carole is reading and watching at the moment (38:35).
Show Notes
- Carole on Twitter
- Carole on RTE
- News from Under Coat Stand
- Interview with George Bush
- For more, hear my conversations with Tina Lee, Nick Duerden and Eimear Ní Bhraonáin.
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