Addressing graduating students, she added: “Do it. Follow your passion but do so with purpose. Journalism can still be a force for good.<\/p>\n
“Go out there, take up space, use your voice and show the world why you’re needed.”<\/p>\n
Cole received her postgraduate diploma in Broadcast Journalism in 2003 from the University of Central England (now BCU). <\/p>\n
She later returned to the institution as director of undergraduate journalism courses, a role she held from 2018 to 2022.<\/p>\n
“Without BCU, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” she said.<\/p>\n
“Professor Diane Kemp supported me from day one of my studies through the harsh realities of the competitive media industry.<\/p>\n
“That course changed my life. We were taught to be news reporters with integrity, how to use our voice and how to hold power to account.<\/p>\n
“Studying and later teaching here allowed me to bring my ambition to life – and to prove to myself that I could help nurture the next generation of journalists into meaningful employment.”<\/p>\n
Cole is also a founding board member of BCU’s Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity, which launched in 2020.<\/p>\n
She said: “For Sir Lenny to establish a research centre in my city, focused on issues I’d spent years working on, was simply an opportunity too important to turn down.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Addressing graduating students, she added: “Do it. Follow your passion but do so with purpose. Journalism can still…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":686631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-686630","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=686630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/686631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}