fearghal o'connor

Citywise is an education based charity organisation that teaches children and teenagers who are having difficulties in formal education. I taught a small class and a number of individuals in various subjects to Junior Certificate level.

I work on the business desk writing and updating markets and other business coverage on RTE's website. I also work in the online sport department.

For the period of the General Election I am working with RTE on its Social Media Desk. This involves monitoring and updating Facebook and Twitter, mainly the @RTE_Elections account. It is extremely busy and really interesting, particularly to experience up close how a large "traditional" media outlet has incorporated social media into the heart of its newsroom.

Prior to 2009, Business & Finance had a very poor and under-developed web presence. I took on the responsibility to change this. I drew up concepts to develop a news driven website that also encompassed the various other activities undertaken by the company. In conjunction with a web development company, I developed the functions and design of the site, which was launched in November 2009. I write and upload much of the content as well as managing other contributors. The site has since built up a large and growing daily audience and I am currently implementing a second stage of development to introduce new features. A key aspect of my work is to integrate the website and its news content with social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The website can be viewed at www.businessandfinance.ie.

During my time with B&F I have delivered a consistent level of high quality journalistic output for which I have won numerous awards (see below) and broken a range of stories, particularly in the transport and aviation sectors. I cover a wide range of business sectors and I have built up an excellent contacts base in business, politics, the trade union movement and elsewhere. I became deputy editor of the magazine three years ago. This has greatly increased my involvement with production, administration and management processes. During a period of enormous transformation for the company, I have combined the Deputy Editor role very successfully with that of Online Editor over the last year and a half.

I contributed a large number of articles on a wide range of sporting topics. I also wrote a column entitled “Postcards from the Edge”. It took a colourful look at a unique sport taking place somewhere in Ireland each week..

I worked as a tech support representative at the company's European base at Eastpoint Business Park in Dublin. This gave me an excellent grounding in internet based technologies and introduced me to technical concepts and languages in a work environment, for example HTML. The role required an ability to be able to deal with people and strong problem solving capabilities.

I managed the digital desk in the Sunday Business Post.

As news editor I was responsible for all editorial content as well as having a large role in design / production. As part of this job I built up a very strong contacts base amongst local and national politicians, industry, community groups and trade unions. During the last year of my time with North County Leader, I managed, wrote and edited an online / email based publication called BusinessEd.net. It was aimed at third level students and teachers of business related subjects. It was a weekly publication that aimed to give an educationally valuable round up of the main national and international business news. It reached audiences in educational institutions throughout Ireland, the UK and the US.

Covering Irish business, politics and everything in between