Professor Colm Murphy

Overview

Life before Ulster

He worked as an award-winning investigative journalist with The Sunday Times and also established and helped float on the stock market the news agency Emerging Marks Plc. He built its operations in Russia, India, Poland, Turkey and Israel. He was business editor of The Sunday Tribune and completed a PhD on public policymaking for high-tech indigenous growth. He has made ratings leading investigative documentaries for RTE and wrote several investigative books.

Teaching

He teaches NCTJ accredited Media Law and Regulation, interactive online journalism, investigative journalism and safety and security for journalists in hostile environments.

A proponent of experiential learning he is a Principal Fellow and UK National Teaching Fellow, the two highest awards in UK university education.

Research

His research focuses on safety and security of journalists in hostile environments; media regulation, law and investigative journalism; future technologies and journalism. He was co-principal investigative on the £3.6m EU Creative Digital project to establish screen industries across four countries and has received funding from UNESCO and others for work on journalism safety.

Civic

He chairs Ofcom’s Advisory Committee for Northern Ireland, providing expert impartial advice to the UK communication’s regulator on telecoms, streaming, online safety, broadcast and the postal service. He served previously as a director of the National Council for the Training of Journalists, Meta’s UK Community News Project, the Journalism Diversity Fund and Creative Skillset’s Research Group. He founded and chaired the NCTJ’s international strategy group and its educator’s forum. He was co-founder and director of the Northern Ireland Media Academy. He is founder and chair of the North-South Journalism Conference, one of the largest journalism conferences in the UK or Ireland.