Méabh McMahon

“I always wanted to be a journalist since I was fifteen or sixteen. It was definitely something that I wanted to do. I was kind of between law and journalism – I was attracted to both of those fields, so I did work experience in the Four Courts in Dublin and I did work experience in The Weekender in Navan. Both were thrilling and interesting, but with journalism, I just got hooked. I just loved it, I loved everything that was happening around me. I was always interested in the news and we always had the TV on with the evening news and we all sat around to watch it. The radio, the newspapers, I just loved it and then I was clear, and from that age on I set that goal, I want to be a journalist, that’s what I want to do.“

Today my guest is broadcasting journalist Méabh McMahon. With almost twenty years experience, Méabh is currently one of the anchors at Euronews – a pan-European media broadcaster. I was interested in chatting with Méabh about her career which has mostly been based in Europe and about some of the highlights of her time in broadcasting journalism, so I hope you are sitting comfortably and happy to stay with us.

We started off with describing her first job on TV when she was based in Valencia, working with a small production company that was broadcasting daily news snippets (02:03), we chatted about Méabh’s reasons for becoming a journalist (04:48) and her reasons for staying abroad (07:12). We then moved on to talk about living in Brussels (09:00), about women working in media (12:04), and we discussed if European media channels have a continental style (17:40). On the other side of the chat, we focused on the importance of fixers when it comes to working abroad (21:55), Méabh’s experience during the Brussels terrorist attack (23:56) and the next big thing happening in Euronews (26:25). Towards the end of our chat we talked about us media in Europe (32:45), social media and how important it is (39:05), and we finished with me asking Méabh what she is reading and watching at the moment (42:45).

Show Notes

• Méabh at Euronews
• Méabh on Twitter
• Méabh on Instagram
• Méabh’s website
• For more, hear my conversations with Cristina Maza, Carole Coleman and Tina Lee

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