Our committee meetings are usually held every two months. All members are welcome to come along and have their say. Sign up to our newsletter for meeting details.
Gabriella Bennett
Chair
Gabriella Bennett is a freelance journalist and author. Her articles on housing, travel and social justice have appeared in The Observer, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Times and The Sunday Times. In 2021 she was named travel writer of the year at the Scottish Press Awards.
Catriona Stewart
Secretary
Catriona Stewart is a columnist and reporter for The Herald and Glasgow Times, a diverse role that can see her at the High Court one day and learning to skate with Disney on Ice the next. Her interests are social affairs, feminism and, for the Glasgow Times, education and the complex issues in the Govanhill area of the city. She has also reported from Sierra Leone and the refugee camps along the Thailand/Myanmar border.
Catriona previously worked for the Scottish Daily Mail and was a music reviewer for The Herald. She is a regular contributor to BBC Radio Scotland and has appeared on Woman's Hour, Good Morning Britain, Newsnight, BBC News and BBC World. She has been shortlisted for Columnist of Year at both the Regional and Scottish Press Awards multiple times.
Rhiannon Davies
Membership Secretary
Rhiannon Davies began working in journalism in 2012, when she started writing a weekly column for a newspaper in Turkey. She then spent two years as Arts & Culture Editor of an Istanbul-based magazine, before becoming a freelance travel writer. In 2016, she undertook a MSc in Media, Communication and International Journalism at the University of Glasgow. She now works as a Multimedia Journalist at independent Scottish news website, CommonSpace, as well as freelancing for various online and print publications. She is a teaching associate in the University of Strathclyde Journalism, Media & Communication department and is also experienced in third sector communications.
Amy Shearer
Events
Amy Shearer is currently Digital Audience and Content Editor at the Greenock Telegraph. Her career in newspapers began aged 14 when she started writing a column for that very same newspaper. She returned there in 2020 after graduating from Strathclyde University with a First-Class Honours degree in Journalism, Creative Writing and English Literature. She was recognised as Young Journalist of the Year in 2021 by PPA Scotland, was shortlisted at the Scottish Press Awards as Young Journalist of the Year in 2021 and was named a 'Newsquest Star' in 2022.
Daniella Theis
Events
Daniella Theis is currently working as a journalist for the Greenock Telegraph, after graduating with a first-class honours degree in Journalism and Politics from the University of Strathclyde this year. Prior to starting her new role, she worked as a freelance journalist and was part of a small social enterprise aimed at supporting those from working class and lower socio-economic backgrounds into journalism. She is a finalist in the ‘Student of the Year’ category at this year’s Scottish Press Awards and was winner of the same category in 2021.Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Iris Pase
Events
Iris Pase is a freelance journalist and translator. Focusing primarily on human rights and women's health, her work has appeared in a variety of publications, including VICE, openDemocracy, BBC The Social, and the Independent. In 2021, she received a Write To End Violence Against Women Public Recognition Award for the op-ed "Why do women need to die before we listen?" published in Bella Caledonia.
Passionate about social media and audience engagement, she currently works as a Social Media Manager at Positive News Magazine and as a Production and Social Media Editor at The Ferret.
Chloe Gardener
Graphic Designer
Chloe Gardener is currently studying journalism at Glasgow Clyde College. In her free time she has written for several online publications including Empoword Journalism, The Indiependent, The Clyde Insider and The Collective Magazine. She is interested in covering social issues at a local level, as well as writing about mental health, film/television, gaming and culture. She also produces, edits and co-hosts her own weekly podcast, “Film Queery”, which covers film and television from a queer perspective.
Before venturing into journalism, Chloe had an art background which meant she is able to weave her visual storytelling skills into her journalism work through graphic design and photography.
Lucy Small
Lucy Small is a freelance digital journalist for BBC Scotland News. In her time at the BBC she has worked for Question Time and had multiple viral posts for BBC The Social. Having spent the start of her career working for NGOs on projects around the world, Lucy is passionate about tackling the climate crisis and fighting for refugees' rights. As a dyslexic journalist, she wants to raise awareness of disability within the field.
Catriona MacPhee
Catriona MacPhee is a Senior Journalist with the BBC Scotland politics team, including working on Question Time and Debate Night. She previously worked for STV News, The Press & Journal and The Oban Times.
Catriona is a former co-chair of Women in Journalism Scotland and is passionate about supporting working mothers. She leads our Women in Sports Journalism campaign. Catriona is also committed to achieving gender balance on our screens and leads on our broadcast training for women journalists and commentators.
Jan Patience
As well as writing a regular visual arts column for The Herald, for the last decade, Jan Patience is a regular arts expert on television and radio programmes. Listeners to and viewers of BBC Radio Four’s ‘Front Row,’ BBC Radio Scotland, the new BBC Scotland channel and Scottish TV are all familiar with Jan’s considered analysis. Despite having started her career on the Sunday Mail in an era when you got ink on your backside when you sat on a canteen seat vacated by a printer, she is also a social media influencer in the arts sphere, with a strong and varied presence. Jan has also worked on the BBC’s Expert Women initiative, which equips women to be contributors to television, radio and online. She is involved in a new training venture with fellow WiJ Scotland committee women which helps professional women to tell their story in public in a positive way.
Libby Brooks
Libby Brooks is the Guardian's Scotland correspondent, based from her home city of Glasgow since 2014. She has previously worked in London for the Guardian as an editor and columnist on Opinion, feature writer and women's editor. She has also reported home and foreign news, from Australia, New Zealand, East Timor and Israel. She is co-chair of Women in Journalism Scotland, an organisation she helped to set up in 2016. She is the author of the Story of Childhood: growing up in modern Britain.
Shona Craven
Shona Craven is currently Community Editor and a columnist for The National, and a regular contributor to current affairs programmes on the BBC and STV. She previously worked as a sub-editor for The Herald and a features assistant for Metro, and reviewed theatre for both of those titles and others including The Times and The Big Issue.
Raj Gill
Raj Gill is a Freelance Journalist & Editor. She began working in journalism at the tender age of 15, when she knocked on the door at STV and scored herself a job as a runner. She went on to work on several projects at STV as a Programme Researcher. She also worked at The Evening Times and The Herald.
She relocated to London to work at The Sunday Times for three years. She returned to Scotland and worked as a Sub-editor across all the titles to refresh her contacts. In 2008 she became a freelancer and has worked across most mainstream broadsheet/tabloid/magazine publications including The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, The Metro, The Herald etc as well as working across Women’s interest magazines such as Bella, and Woman’s Own.
Raj is also the Editor-at-large for Upscale Living Magazine and founder and Director of Kartar PR & Comms.
Anna Burnside
Anna Burnside is currently features writer and restaurant reviewer at the Daily Record. Her career in newspapers began at the Gorgie-Dalry Gazette; since then she has worked at Scotland on Sunday, the Sunday Herald and the Sunday Times as well as freelancing for the Times, the Independent, the Daily Mail, the Radio Times and more. She also appears on TV and radio as a talking head and chairs book and other live events.
Carla Jenkins
Carla Jenkins is a Social Media journalist for The Times and Sunday Times Scotland. She has had work published in The Guardian, The Times and Sunday Times, The Herald and Herald on Sunday, The Daily Record, The Scottish Sun and The Mirror among others. Her broadcast credits include guest appearances on the Jeremy Vine show on Channel 5, a short film for BBC Three, and appearances on BBC Scotland and BBC Radio Scotland. She holds an M. Phil in Irish Writing at Trinity College, Dublin and an MA (Hons) in English Literature from the University of St Andrews. She won Young Journalist of the Year at the Scottish Press Awards and her temerity in emailing everyone she knew with the news kick-started her career.