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Why did you choose to become a freelancer?
It was necessity more than choice, most people working in broadcasting are freelance, because television in particular, and particularly at the moment, is a very unstable and insecure industry where there are no secure jobs. It has given me great freedom and flexibility, however, and taught me considerable self-reliance. I've also made good friends with other freelancers who are a tough and versatile breed.

If you trained, where? If not, how did you become a freelancer?
I did some short BBC courses when I was there and also did the Westminster Press journalism training. I learned how to be a freelancer from other freelancers, and in a kind of sink or swim way. The unions have been helpful with advice as well especially the NUJ. it took me a long time to learn how to sell myself and to be brazen about pitching for work on the phone. Now I am utterly shameless!

Do you specialise in any particular field and what areas do you write about?
I have done a lot of business programmes in the last two or three years, especially corporate social responsibility. CSR is a field that fascinates me, teasing out the genuinely good stuff going on in the area from all the PR and hogwash is satisfying. I've done a lot on international development as well and travelled extensively in the developing world, so I've been very lucky really.

I spent a few years working in the current affairs department of BBC Scotland where I were was privileged and lucky enough to work with some really impressive investigative journalists, so I learned a lot there. To have weeks, sometimes months, investigating a story was fantastic.

Which publications have you been published in?
Most of my work is in broadcasting and non-broadcast corporate video, so I don't write for publication nearly as much as I would like. Had occasional pieces in the Guardian and Independent over the years.

Which articles/broadcast, are you the most proud of?
I made three films for BBC Scotland about the case of Robert Brown, Scotland's longest serving victim of a miscarriage of justice, he was jailed for 25 years in 1977.

The first film was about the case, the second was about a corrupt police officer in the case and a third was about Robert Brown's first few weeks of freedom when his appeal eventually succeeded in 2002.

I also made a film for the BBC about Ronald Maddison, a British serviceman who died in a secret government nerve gas experiment in the 1950s. We discovered some important information about what the government scientists at the time did and did not know which I like to think helped in the family's (eventually successful) campaign for compensation.

What are the best and worst aspects of freelancing?
The best aspect is having some control over what you do, essentially you are only answerable to your bank manager, although you want to keep your clients happy and be in demand.

The worst aspects of freelancing are that you never really switch off, you have three jobs it seems to me - getting the work, doing the work and the admin. I envy people who go home on a Friday night and don't think about their jobs until Monday morning. I also envy the sociable aspects of a workplace with colleagues and the support and structure that employees in staff jobs and long contracts seem to get, though I know it's not always like that. Every time I see people bogged down in office politics, I thank God I am a freelance. I started to enjoy freelancing a great deal more when I stopped thinking like an employee and started to think about it as a business.

Do you have any interesting anecdotes in relation to your experience as a freelancer?
I worked on as series of Channel 4 current affairs documentaries recently. I was employed as a freelance director at an independent production company that is quite highly respected and well established. We were in a busy office with a lot of people under a lot of pressure. Television, like the media generally I guess, invariably fosters quite a lot of competitive energy and biggish egos. Not surprising perhaps, to find a bit of bitchiness and office politics going on, pretty much standard media stuff that is common in a lot of work places, of course. Except in this office everybody was incredibly courteous and mutually supportive. I kept waiting for the inevitable flareup or some dysfunctional personality issue to kick off but no, even when everyone was totally frazzled and working their fingers to the bone, the charm, politeness, good humour and all-round chumminess continued undimmed.

After a couple of months I shared my puzzlement with a colleague over a beer about why there had not been a single cross word, no tantrums, prima donna-ish behaviour or backbiting where I would have expected at least a little bit of drama in that department. We could only speculate that it was because everybody, even the boss, was freelance and in the same contractual boat. None of us had any expectations beyond the completion of the series we were working on and so we all just knuckled down and got on with it rather than worrying about our careers or competing with our colleagues. Either that or we just happened to be a freak combination of incredibly nice people.

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