I work at the World Economic Forum. The Forum is an independent, international organization incorporated as a not-for-profit foundation in Geneva, Switzerland. This is my personal blog and website so the usual caveats apply.
From June 2005, I was head of Journalism at City University London.
My broadcast news career started with a summer internship at CBS News back in 1987. A year later and they started paying me. I spent four of the most exciting years in international news with CBS: the conclusion of the Lebanese hostage crisis and the Iran-Iraq War; freedom for Nelson Mandela; the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall; the first Gulf War.
In 1993, I joined ITN’s News At Ten which took me from Belfast to Bosnia, and to many places besides. Three years later, I joined the launch team for Five News.
Five went on air in 1997, with the British general election that ended the post-Thatcher era and brought Tony Blair to power. We reported the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, and every story from Kosovo to 9/11 and subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I also turned analogue newsrooms digital, pioneered low-cost news production, and did an MBA at London Business School.
At Five, I was lucky enough to spend a few years sitting alongside one of the world’s finest broadcasters — Kirsty Young — and a bunch of very creative, youthful (well they were then) and talented people which — as all journalists know — “beats working for a living.”
Along the way, things I did at Five, at Dunblane, and in Bosnia picked up Royal Television Society awards. A report on aid to Rwanda won gold at the New York Festivals and overall Festival prize.
Before joining City University London, I had a brief, but enjoyable, spell at Sky News. The British general election of May 2005 — Tony Blair’s last — also happened to be my farewell to television news.
You can contact me at amonck [at] gmail [dot] com