Thomas Williams Email & Phone Number

England, United Kingdom

London, England, United Kingdom

I work on one of the most popular news websites in the UK and my stories are read by more than2,000,000 people every month. Every day, I research, write, edit and publish stories for an onlineaudience, working with the picture, video, social media and SEO desks to ensure each article is asengaging as possible and reaches the highest number of people.I have also led news shifts on evenings and weekends; setting the stories that will be covered thatday, editing others’ work, and taking charge of the site’s homepage and news pages.Coming up with new ideas and different angles is key to standing out from the competition and it isessential to understand which of my stories have performed well, and why. I keep track of analyticsin real-time to judge whether headlines or pictures need to change or if engagement can be boostedanother way for example by pitching to Upday or Apple News to get the story placed on their apps.I have worked throughout the pandemic on all the major lockdown announcements, as well as the2020 US election, Euro 2020 and Prince Philip’s death. I have been able to quickly identify the keylines that will be of most interest to readers, verify the information, publish the story within minutesof it breaking and then source reaction from a range of contacts.Aside from covering the daily news agenda, I have worked on several exclusives for the website. Thishas included tracking down a man who escaped from Wuhan in the early days of the pandemic,investigating how the benefits system is letting down people with mental health problems andwriting a long form piece on how Covid has changed transport in the UK.

Working in radio for the first time, I compiled and read hourly news bulletins live on-air, produced live four-hour long programmes and reported on major events and stories in the patch. Each bulletin contained a mix of local and national news; sourced from contacts, the wires, and the central BBC operation. It was essential to showcase a range of different topics and voices, while maintaining the BBC’s reputation for accuracy and impartiality. In this varied role, I started producing the drive time show on my own within six months. This included writing the presenter’s scripts in an engaging way, researching and booking live guests for a range of items and then outputting the show live, making sure we kept to time, taking calls and texts from listeners and editing new audio as it came in. I also reported live from the Oxford East general election count, conducting on-air interviews with all the major candidates and providing a rolling commentary on the latest updates. Elsewhere, I met the farmer who is looking to cut methane emissions by feeding his cows differently, the dad whose daughter’s death in a car crash turned him into a passionate campaigner for road safety and the teacher calling for the ‘unfair’ way nurseries are funded to be reformed. Each time recording and editing packages to tell their stories in a sensitive and engaging way.

Oxford, United Kingdom

I researched and wrote stories for the fast-growing website, daily newspaper and seven associated weekly regional titles. This saw me reporting on an armed siege, BMW’s warnings about the future of its Oxford plant after Brexit and a visit of the Duchess of Cambridge. Speed and accuracy were key in reporting these rapidly developing news stories. I was a patch reporter while also covering crime and understand the importance of building strong contacts to source exclusive stories. Each article involved creating and sourcing images, video and graphics to engage the audience. Upon publication, I would look for follow-ups and different angles to move the story on. I used polls and online comments to gauge reader reaction and write updates. My stories attracted around 500,000 page views every month, a fifth of these coming direct from social media. To meet the needs of a daily newspaper with a reach of 75,000 a day, I also performed sub-editing, proofreading and design tasks. I worked flexibly to cover out-of-hours web shifts, reporting on breaking news and taking charge of the paper’s social media, which then had a combined reach of 100,000 people.

London, United Kingdom

I was promoted to this maternity cover role following a successful 18 months as Media Officer. I took on the management of all communications in four English regions - the North West, East Midlands, South East and South West. Closely working with our offices in these areas, I handled high profile press announcements for the Fund. This included the funding for the FA to commemorate the 50th anniversary of England’s World Cup win, rebuilding the world’s first motor racing circuit at Brooklands Museum in Surrey and rescuing a sunken Second World War ship from the docks in Liverpool. From writing an attention-grabbing news story with great imagery and info graphics to boosting engagement by utilising influential social media accounts and discussion topics, I ensured each story would stand out and be told as effectively as possible to the public. My specially tailored package of content could include press releases, web copy, social media plans, photo calls, speeches, photography and short films, depending on what tools I felt would work best. Alongside this proactive communications work, I was responsible for handling all media enquiries from both national and regional journalists, often working under pressure to provide clear and succinct position statements to short deadlines.

London, United Kingdom

Working in a busy press office, I was responsible for generating positive news coverage for the Fund across titles such as the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Mail Online, Country Life and BBC News as well as increasing our presence on social media. Daily duties included monitoring media outlets for mentions of the fund, making new contacts with journalists at events and online and leading on comms work for the specialist young people’s programme. Due to the high quantity of grants awarded, I often had to manage many competing priorities. This required working closely with colleagues at a range of different organisations from large museums to voluntary community groups. I analysed and reported on the effectiveness of all campaigns through the use of tools such as Google analytics, Twitter stats and Gorkana and used these findings to find new ways of targeting different, and larger, audiences.

Responsible for the full suite of digital and print communications for this influential not-for-profit community organisation. Duties included writing press releases, pitching stories to journalists and dealing with media enquiries, writing and inputting copy and pictures for regular e-newsletters that were sent to over 3,700 people, editing and writing for our quarterly print publication which has a print run of 2,500 copies, managing social media channels and blogs, organising and attending events on behalf of the organisation and producing a regular comms stats report for senior management and the Board of Directors. Whilst in post I have worked in partnership with other staff members and external agencies to complete a full redesign of our website, which gets an average of 10,000 hits a quarter, and a full organisational rebrand including developing a new logo and guidelines that merged the organisation’s diverse projects and campaigns in to one recognisable entity.

Master'S Degree, Journalism And Media Studies, Distinction

Activities and Societies: The Badger Newspaper

Bachelor'S Degree, Politics

Activities and Societies: People and Planet Society, Students' Union Executive,