Blake Antrobus Email & Phone Number

Brisbane, Qld, Au

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

In early 2023, I commenced a supplementary role as a Chief of Staff with NCA NewsWire, mainly working weekend shifts. This role is in addition to my current undertaking as the NewsWire's Queensland Court Reporter.In this role I am responsible for allocating staff resources during rostered shifts and steering the management of the NewsWire under the direction of the editor. I am also responsible for monitoring news feeds and breaking news, editing and publishing staff copy and coordinating masthead requests, among other day-to-day duties.

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

NewsWire (formerly NCA NewsWire) is an online wire service specialising in breaking news across Australia. It services all the major News Corp Australia mastheads and other external clients such as Seven West Media, Yahoo News and Daily Mail Australia, covering topics that include court, crime, politics, business and sport.In my current role, based out of Brisbane, I am responsible for driving coverage of major cases across all Queensland court jurisdictions, working with a small but tight team to deliver breaking news updates and rolling coverage of criminal and civil matters across the state, in addition to general and breaking news updates. As a result of my work, I am recognised as one of the NewsWire's strongest and most dependable senior writers.My work is regularly featured on news.com.au - one of Australia's most popular news websites that attracts more than 18 million visitors per month - and I have had bylines published in newspapers across almost every state and territory in the country. My audience has grown to a monthly average of 1-2 million pageviews across the network.In addition, I have prepared feature-length pieces published across the network on significant stories, such as the coronial inquest into the death of Queensland schoolgirl Tiahleigh Palmer, and the horrendous murders of Hannah Clarke and her three children in 2020.

Brisbane

During the restructure of News Regional Media, I was assigned to cover news in the Greater Brisbane region as part of the Quest Community News group. The Quest team provides hyperlocal news coverage to communities across South East Queensland, with 13 print titles shifting to a digital format in June 2020.My main activities concerned major news and court stories in the southwest region, specifically around the areas of Richlands, Inala and Mount Gravatt. I was reporting daily from Richlands Magistrates Court and became well acquainted with the delightful staff at the court registry and prosecutions office.

Brisbane, Australia

News Regional Media (NRM) is the voice of thousands of Australians living outside their capital cities, with the company's printed papers encompassing a monthly print reach of 928,000 readers until 2020. Based out of Brisbane, I was part of a small digital team filing stories for daily newspapers in Mackay, Rockhampton, Gladstone, Bundaberg, Fraser Coast, Gympie, Sunshine Coast, Ipswich, Toowoomba, Warwick, Lismore and Grafton, among other print titles.On a day-to-day basis I was responsible for publishing daily news lists from the central reporting team, coordinating site requests for stories written by the Courier Mail and ensuring leading stories from individual sites were filed to Chiefs of Staff. I wrote a number of group stories that were run in bulk across NRM's daily newspapers, covering topics such as decentralisation, population growth, climate change and other areas of significant political and social interest.This role gave me advanced skills in data journalism and significant court experience when I stood in for NRM's court reporter in the Brisbane district.

Hervey Bay

The Fraser Coast Chronicle is the leading news source for the regions of Hervey Bay and Maryborough. I arrived at the paper during a time of major political upheaval at the local council. Under the guidance of my editors and senior members of the editorial team, my reporting on the council and its then-mayor Chris Loft played a major role in bringing his activities to public light and scrutiny, which eventually led to his sacking by the State Government and subsequent prosecution by the state’s peak corruption watchdog.During my time on the Fraser Coast I became known as a ‘local entity’ with my reporting on politics, local government, health, education, general news, crime and court. This included acting as the paper’s lead reporter on the State and Federal elections and standing in as the sports reporter and photographer during times of staff absences.When News Regional Media shifted to a premium subscription model, I was among the company’s first reporters to gain the most digital subscriptions in the first few weeks of the rollout. Following this, I consistently met weekly subscription targets working with the digital team.

Roma, Qld

The Western Star was one of the longest-printing newspapers in Queensland and remains the primary news source for people in the Maranoa region. During my time at the paper I was responsible for delivering a surge in digital growth for the Facebook page and website, under the direction of the editor and the rest of the Surat Basin editorial network. While working in a small team, I covered news in a geographic region spanning more than 58,000km while providing photography and video footage for the paper's website. In times of staff shortages I stood in as a guest editor for the local papers in Charleville (The Western Times) and St George (The Balonne Beacon).My contributions in this role were recognised at the 2016 Queensland Country Press Awards where editor Tom Gillespie and myself picked up several awards for our work.

Central Local Court

Court monitor and recorder at Sydney's Downing Centre court complex and Central Local Court. I recorded courtroom proceedings, managed inter-court requests, log sheets, case outcomes, Working with Children Checks, Drug and Alcohol Assessments and assisted media with access to suppressed court cases.