Michael Gilson Email & Phone Number

Michael is an author, writer, award-winning journalist and communicator. His new book Behind the Privet Hedge: Richard Sudell, the Suburban Garden and the Beautification of Britain is out now, published by Reaktion Books. It tells the story of the explosion of suburban gardening in the early 20th Century and how, despite their stereotyping as symbols of dull middle-class conformity, the new open spaces were seen as in the vanguard of attempts to create a more egalitarian country.Royal Horticultural Society historian Brent Elliott wrote: ‘Everyone who is interested in twentieth-century garden history should read this book.’ Michael is also a freelance journalist and writer and, as Associate Fellow of the School of Media, Arts and Humanities, University of Sussex, delivers occasional lectures to journalism students.He has served for 30 years as a newspaper and website editor. He has been an editor of, among others, The Scotsman, the Belfast Telegraph, The News, Portsmouth, and The Argus, Brighton. He has freelanced for among others The Guardian, Times, Sunday Times, Irish Times, The Lancet.In 2014 he was the Overall Journalist of the Year in Northern Ireland. In total, his newspapers have won more than 20 awards for circulations, exclusives and campaigns. Under his editorship the Belfast Telegraph was awarded Newspaper of the Year four times in five years in Northern Ireland.He has been a regular speaker at conferences and university lectures on subjects including Reporting During Wartime, Reporting on Devolved Governments, Decline of Journalism and the Democratic Deficit. He has written on these subjects and more for a range of academic publications on the media.He has given evidence to the Leveson Inquiry, the House of Lords Select Committee on Media Ownership and the Northern Ireland Assembly on Defamation Reform. He was a member of Press Complaints Commission code committee for six years to 2006 and a director of Regulatory Funding Company until 2016.He has been a judge at the British Press Awards for the last six years and the Irish Press Awards on three occasions including this year.In 2022 he finished a five-year project to transform communications and engagement as Head of Communications at Adur & Worthing Councils and the Greater Brighton City Region. Narrative-driven change and rebranding has helped position both organisations at the centre of life in their places.In 2019 he was awarded an MA (with distinction) in Garden and Landscape History at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London.

Listed skills include Journalism, Editing, Social Media, Blogging, and 13 others.

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  Institute Of Historical Research, University Of London

  Garden And Landscape History