Presenter and filmmaker Stacey Dooley was interviewed at today’s Televisual Factual Festival about her career in documentary by True Vision’s Brian Woods.
Dooley, whose presenting career was launched after her appearance in BBC3’s Blood Sweat and T Shirts in 2008, has gone on to front hard hitting docs on subjects including sex trafficking, homelessness and domestic violence.
Talking about her early work, Dooley said she would “like to think I’m more polished now” but “ultimately I’m under no illusions about being an academic. It’s my emotional intelligence that’s my USP.”
She said that her mentor at the BBC, Danny Cohen, stressed to her early on that it was “important to be kind, show compassion, have empathy” and not to start “mimicking high brow middle class journalists.”
She spoke about her film on right wing and Islamic extremism in her home town of Luton where she ended up in a confrontation with Islamic marchers, saying “Sometimes you’ve got to stick to your guns and make sure you’re not frightened to ask the questions that will make them uncomfortable” but that now she “wouldn’t shout and ball and kick off” in the same way. “It’s a fine line. You don’t want to lose all your spirit or you’ll end up like a sanitised reporter.”
Staff Reporter
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