AUSTRALIA
Sophie McNeill - Video Journalist
Sophie McNeill
Pick, arguably, the most dangerous region in the world today and that’s where you’ll find Sophie McNeill. The young Dateline reporter has based herself in Beirut, Lebanon and has reported on the fierce fighting inside a refugee camp (The Siege of Nahr el-Bared), the plight of Israel’s Arab population (Offside in Israel) and the in-fighting that’s devastating the Palestinian territories (Palestine: Divided, It Falls).
For this last story, Sophie was awarded the title Young Australian Journalist of the Year for 2007.
Sophie made her first documentary at age 15, when she travelled solo to East Timor to film the health crisis crippling the recently-liberated country. At 16 she was awarded Western Australia’s Young Person of the Year Award and at 17 she began studying politics at Curtin University. A year later, she deferred her degree to join the team at SBS Television’s Insight program. Here she produced another revealing documentary on the death of an asylum seeker who’d been held under Australia’s mandatory detention policy. This doco won Sophie the MEAA 2003 Student Journalist of the Year Award, Best Newcomer at the 2003 West Australian Media Awards and Best Emerging Director at the 2003 West Australian Screen Awards.
Sophie moved to Dateline and since working on the show she’s covered a range of stories from the US midterm elections, Burmese refugees in Thailand, the Mexican election controversy and young Tibetans challenging the Dalai Lama, to name a few. She was a New York Film Festival finalist for her 2005 story Shoot the Messenger, which detailed the shooting of an unarmed, wounded Iraqi in a Fallujah mosque by an American soldier.
Sophie also contributes to SBS Television’s World News Australia bulletins and in her spare time she’s written three articles for British newspaper The Independent about Hezbollah's attempts to overthrow the Lebanese government. Sophie is also trying to master Arabic.
For further information please contact SBS publicist Christine Heard on 02 9430 3794 or christine.heard@sbs.com.au
For this last story, Sophie was awarded the title Young Australian Journalist of the Year for 2007.
Sophie made her first documentary at age 15, when she travelled solo to East Timor to film the health crisis crippling the recently-liberated country. At 16 she was awarded Western Australia’s Young Person of the Year Award and at 17 she began studying politics at Curtin University. A year later, she deferred her degree to join the team at SBS Television’s Insight program. Here she produced another revealing documentary on the death of an asylum seeker who’d been held under Australia’s mandatory detention policy. This doco won Sophie the MEAA 2003 Student Journalist of the Year Award, Best Newcomer at the 2003 West Australian Media Awards and Best Emerging Director at the 2003 West Australian Screen Awards.
Sophie moved to Dateline and since working on the show she’s covered a range of stories from the US midterm elections, Burmese refugees in Thailand, the Mexican election controversy and young Tibetans challenging the Dalai Lama, to name a few. She was a New York Film Festival finalist for her 2005 story Shoot the Messenger, which detailed the shooting of an unarmed, wounded Iraqi in a Fallujah mosque by an American soldier.
Sophie also contributes to SBS Television’s World News Australia bulletins and in her spare time she’s written three articles for British newspaper The Independent about Hezbollah's attempts to overthrow the Lebanese government. Sophie is also trying to master Arabic.
For further information please contact SBS publicist Christine Heard on 02 9430 3794 or christine.heard@sbs.com.au
