We’re excited to welcome our new Anvil team member, Sally Maguire. With over 20 years of broadcast journalism & producer experience, we caught up with Sally to talk about some of her favourite past projects, international productions, and her deep-rooted interest in the challenges facing agriculture.
Q: How did you start in video production & broadcast journalism?
A: I studied Marketing straight after school which I enjoyed; my dad is also a journalist and my mother was working in television at the time. I was offered the opportunity to work/intern in television while studying at university which cemented my interest in journalism.
Q: What are some of the previous broadcast and video projects you’ve worked on?
A: I spent five years traveling Australia and the world for Getaway, which at the time was Australia’s top rating travel tv show. During my time working with Qantas inflight televisionTV, I got to go behind the scenes of Australia’s premier cultural events and exhibitions – as well as touring international shows. Producing content for Yoko Ono’s first Australian exhibition and the Oprah Down Under extravaganza were among the highlights.
Q: What was it like producing an interview with Donald Trump?
A: I interviewed Donald Trump during his “The Apprentice” years, before he became the US President, as part of the international Lambassador campaign with Sam Kekovich while working for Channel 7. The pre-production and set up for the interview at Trump Towers was quite intimidating but like so many high profile people I have met, on the day, in the moment, he was charming and disarming.
Q: How did your interest in agriculture begin?
A: My first on camera journalism job was at WIN Television Toowoomba in regional Queensland. As well as being a great entry in television news it was also an amazing region to learn about agriculture, primary production and politics. I spent time in piggeries, on cotton farms and delving into the rabbit plague – as well as making many life-long friends who make their living off the land.
Q: What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?
A: I recently built and now live in a hemp home which stimulated my interest in growing industrial hemp and my first trial crop is in the ground now. I am also currently the vice-president of the Industrial Hemp Association of NSW. Constructing a hemp home followed our move from inner Sydney to the lower Hunter Valley, where we now live on a share farm (117ha). I now have about 20 laying chickens and co-manage some beef cattle. Having the experience of feeding ourselves from our own land and being surrounded by other farms has given me an invaluable insight into what it takes to mass produce food. I absolutely love living on a farm and hopefully soon I can expand my menagerie to include horses – as horse-riding is my favourite hobby.
Q: What do you love about your job?
A: The two aspects I love about being a journalist are that I never stop learning and I’m always meeting new people. I feel that learning more about agriculture is a natural progression for my life and career. I am by no means a farmer but these days I do get my hands dirty and this makes me all the more interested in the challenges for agriculture now and also in the future.
If you’d like Sally, or one of our Anvil video experts, to work on your video & podcast projects – get in touch.