Prof Paul Bradshaw, Birmingham City University
Paul Bradshaw leads the MA in online journalism at Birmingham City University which he established in 2009. He was also a visiting professor in online journalism at City University, London until 2015. With a background in magazine and website management, he published the online journalism blog which UK Press Gazette described as "one of the country's most influential journalism blogs". He is also founder of the investigative journalism crowd-sourcing site Help Me Investigate and co-author of the Online Journalism Handbook.
John Dalziel, Free Radio
Coventry-born John Dalziel has been weekday breakfast presenter with Roisin McCourt at Coventry and Warwickshire's Free Radio since 2009. He is also match day presenter and announcer at Coventry City football club and Coventry Blaze ice hockey club. He is a director of Escape Live, an escape game in Coventry, Birmingham, Stratford-upon-Avon and Essex. Formerly branded as Mercia Sound, Free Radio was bought from Orion by Bauer Radio last year.
Joe Godwin, BBC
Joe Godwin is director of the BBC Academy, based in Birmingham. He has responsibility for maintaining the skill levels of BBC content, journalists and digital creative experts in the UK and overseas. Mr Godwin is also director of BBC in the Midlands, responsible for all BBC initiatives in the region. He was previously head of news, factual and entertainment, and also head of children's entertainment from 2009 to 2014. Under his leadership, BBC Children's won numerous BAFTA awards.
Adrian Goldberg, BBC
Journalist and broadcaster Adrian Goldberg fronted BBC Radio WM's breakfast show until March of this year. He had returned to the early morning slot in 2015 in his third spell as presenter, before leaving to now concentrate on national radio projects including 5 Live Investigates. Mr Goldberg worked on the BBC consumer programme Watchdog and ran the news and campaigning website and Birmingham Mail column The Stirrer, which he shut down in 2010. His father Rudolph escaped Nazi Germany as a 13-year-old child thanks to Sir Nicholas Winton's Kindertransport.
Mark Hales, The Business Desk
Mark Hales is shareholder and non-executive director of fast-growing business new site The Business Desk. The web site now has a presence in the East and West Midlands, the North West and Yorkshire. He also founded Oxygen Accelerator, a now London-based tech start-up accelerator which aims to invest in and support start-ups with big ideas. Mr Hales has spent most of his career in the health and social care sector and ran the Claimar Care Group, an AIM-listed social care provider turning over £65 million a year. He exited in 2009 and set up a growth capital fund, investing in small businesses in a variety of sectors.
Keith Harrison, Express and Star
Keith Harrison is editor of the Express and Star which has Wolverhampton and the Black Country as its heartland. He is also editorial director of the Express and Star's parent, the Midlands News Association which includes the Shropshire Star and a string of weeklies. He was previously editor of the Shropshire Star. His brief, when he took over as tenth editor of the Express and Star, was to modernise the news operation, which he has done with "multi-platform journalists", greater online presence and removing complexity from the production of local editions. He is an advocate of local print journalism alongside digital news operations.
Ed James, Heart FM
Ed James has presented the breakfast show on Heart FM since 2002, currently co-hosting with Gemma Hill. He is also a columnist for the Birmingham Mail and was chairman of Birmingham Press Club - the oldest press club in the world - from 2012 to 2016. Mr James also sits on the council of the Publicity Association of Central England and supports several charities including as an ambassador for the NSPCC. He has a politics degree from Newcastle University and his mother is TV chef Anne Stirk.
Steven Knight, screenwriter
Birmingham-born writer and director Steven Knight is probably best known for creating the hard-hitting Birmingham-based TV series Peaky Blinders, now in its fourth series. But Peaky Blinders represents a small piece of his extensive body of work which includes the co-creation of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. He wrote the hard-hitting BBC series Taboo which starred Peaky Blinders stalwart Tom Hardy. His film screenplays include BAFTA award-winning Dirty Pretty Things which was also nominated for an Academy Award, Eastern Promises and Closed Circuit. Mr Knight also wrote and directed some episodes of 90s TV series The Detectives which featured Jasper Carrott.
Jacqui Oatley MBE, commentator
Wolverhampton-born Jacqui Oatley commentates on sport - largely football - for BBC and ITV and was the first female commentator on Match of the Day. She is an FA qualified football coach and a director of Women in Football. She is also the UK's first female darts presenter as darts anchor for ITV Sport. Ms Oatley received her MBE in the 2016 New Year's Honours for services to broadcasting and diversity in sport, recognising her championing of the role of women in football. Before her TV career, she was a news reporter for BBC Radio WM and she holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Wolverhampton.
Marc Reeves, Trinity Mirror Midlands
As West Midlands editor-in-chief of Trinity Mirror which publishes the Birmingham Post, the Birmingham Mail, of which he is also editor, and the Coventry Telegraph plus a host of other daily and weekly newspapers, Marc Reeves is arguably the most powerful person in the Midlands media. He has 30 years of experience in regional press and digital news outlets and is committed to developing regional news brands online and in print. He is a former public affairs practitioner, specialising in regional affairs and is a former member of a Government panel examining business model options for regional TV news.
Bob Warman, ITV Central
Bob Warman is one of the best known faces - and best-known voices - on Midland television, having presented the news on independent television for more than 40 years. Apart from a short break at Yorkshire Television, he has been a constant presence on ITV's Central News. Walsall-born, he trained in print journalism before moving to Radio Birmingham and then into television. He is a patron of Acorns Hospice, president of Birmingham Press Club and a former regional chairman of Coutts bank.
