The media team at Flinders University has expanded, with Annika Dean recently joining as a journalist and media advisor. With her experience in the not-for-profit sector and at other universities, Annika explains how the team is expanding Flinders’ strong media profile. 

What is your role and what does your work focus on?

I’m a Media Advisor within the University’s Media and Communications team – which is part of the Office of Communication, Marketing and Engagement. My role is to share all the wonderful stories from the University, connecting them to the public and industry via the news media. We generally do this by putting together media releases and sending them to journalists, or we’ll set up interviews with university staff for TV, radio, print or online.

Often, we will be sharing new research, but we can be promoting all kinds of things, including student achievements or some major change for the University. It’s worth noting that we can only promote what we know about – so if you have a great news story or have some research in the pipeline that’s worth grabbing headline attention, do get in touch.

What journey brought you to this point in your career?

I started out wanting to be a television scriptwriter (OK, I watched a bit too much TV in high school) but that idea got lost along the way. After starting a film and TV degree, I changed tack and decided to study journalism in the hope that one day I could write about TV instead. During my final year at university, I was offered the opportunity to work for the Australian Science Media Centre, and I suddenly found myself immersed in the world of science communication – which was something I had never thought to do – and I loved it.

Many years later, life took me to Sydney, where I worked in the media team for the University of Sydney before family brought me back home to Adelaide. I’ve found that universities are such unique places to work, with great stories, and I can’t wait to uncover a whole lot of fascinating new stories at Flinders.

What does a normal day look like for you?

There’s no such thing as a normal day in media. It depends on what’s happening in the news on any particular day that we will need to react to – or what stories we already have in development.

I always begin my day by taking my dog Basil for a walk, unless it’s raining. Over breakfast, I’ll scan the news websites and my social media to see what stories are making news that morning. Once at work, I’ll start by checking emails and reading through our media report, which is a summary of all the news that has mentioned Flinders University in the previous 24 hours.

From there, I could be working on preparing a new media release, which means quite a bit of concentration to tease out the story angle from the research – a case of head-down, get-in-the-zone writing. Or I could be trying to find an academic to provide relevant comment on some breaking news topic for a requested radio or TV interview. One thing’s for sure – we can never plan the exact format of our days in advance. At any moment, we could be handed a fantastic new story to pitch to media, or have a journalist call us with an unexpected interview opportunity, so we need to be ready to drop what we’re doing and jump over to something else of more urgent importance. It’s all part of the fun of being in the media.

How do you like to relax or spend your spare time?

I got my first ever puppy in March so it’s certainly been an adventure caring for him. He’s a Bernese Mountain Dog, so a lot of my spare time is just cleaning up his fur! Apart from dog walks and trips to the beach, I generally relax with a good book or a random TV show – I’m currently bingeing The Golden Girls from the very beginning.

I’d usually be playing some kind of sport – most likely Aussie Rules Football or basketball – but sadly after undergoing my second ACL reconstruction only three weeks ago, my sporting days appear to be behind me – or at least on hold for the foreseeable future.