Susie Boniface

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Susie Boniface (born 1976or1977 in Tonbridge, [1] Kent) is an English journalist and author who has written for several newspapers and uses the pseudonym Fleet Street Fox in her Daily Mirror column and on Twitter. She used the name Lillys Miles while writing an anonymous blog, but revealed her identity when her book Diaries of a Fleet Street Fox was published in 2013.

Contents

Early life

Susie Boniface was born in 1976or1977. She became interested in journalism in 1989 after the fall of the Berlin Wall and then reading Bluff Your Way in Journalism (1988) by Nigel Foster. [2]

Career

Aged 18, Boniface became a reporter at the Kent and Sussex Courier . [2] She later worked at the Plymouth Herald as defence reporter. [3] She then joined the Sunday Mirror , where she worked for ten years, [3] until she volunteered for redundancy in March 2012. [4] As of 2013, she was a freelance reporter at BBC, Bella, the Daily Express the Daily Mail , The Mail on Sunday, the Daily Star Sunday, The Guardian , The People , The Sun, Reveal and the Press Association. [3]

Boniface joined the journalism department as a visiting lecturer at City, University of London in 2016. [5] [6]

She has written the Bluffer's Guide To Social Media (2015), [7] the Bluffer's Guide to Journalism (2019) [2] and Exposed: The Secret History of Britain's Nuclear Experiments (2024). [8]

Fleet Street Fox

Boniface began her first anonymous blog, now removed, in April 2009[ citation needed ] and started tweeting as fleetstreetfox in October 2009. [9] She started a second news-based blog as Fleet Street Fox in 2011. [10] She revealed her name in The Times in 2013 [11] [12] at the same time as her book was published by Constable & Robinson, though her identity was not a closely kept secret before then; [13] she had been named on Twitter at least once in May 2012 after an argument with Jemima Khan. [14] [15]

Julie Burchill praised her blogging in the British Journalism Review , but said of the book, "I hated it." [16] Broadcaster Jeremy Vine described it as "the first book I've read that starts at 90mph and speeds up". [17] [ non-primary source needed ]

Nuclear Testing investigations

Boniface has investigated the 1950s British nuclear weapons tests in Australia and reported on the veterans' campaign for justice in the Daily Mirror for 20 years. In 2018 she launched a campaign for a Nuclear Test Medal to recognise the service of personnel. [18]

She contributed to the 2024 BBC documentary Britain’s Nuclear Bomb Scandal after attaining an "earth shattering document" containing evidence of blood tests that the Ministry of Defence had claimed it did not have. [19]

Awards

Boniface was nominated in the Campaign of the Year category of the 2009 British Press Awards for "British Nuclear Test Vets". [20] She won third "must follow journo" in the 2011 CRAPPs awards as Fleet Street Fox. [21] Fleet Street Fox won the London Press Club Blog of the Year in 2013. [22] She was nominated for Columnist of the Year (popular press) in the 2014 Society of Editors Press Awards. [23]

References

  1. ↑ susie boniface partner Retrieved 16/4/21.
  2. 1 2 3 Mayhew, Freddy (6 March 2019). "Fleet Street Fox rewrites journalism history in new bluffer's guide to industry". Press Gazette. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 "Fleet Street Fox is former Plymouth Herald reporter Susie Boniface". The Herald. Plymouth. 12 February 2013. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 15 September 2020.
  4. ↑ Burrell, Ian (28 May 2012). "Ian Burrell: The internet Antichrist who is converting online". The Independent. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  5. ↑ @fleetstreetfox (26 July 2016). "Thrilled to announce in September I'll be joining @CityUniLondon as Visiting Lecturer in journalism! #QuakeYe cc @SarahJLonsdale". Twitter. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  6. ↑ "City journalists among most respected in UK". City, University of London. 7 November 2018. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  7. ↑ McIver, Brian (24 December 2015). "Fleet Street Fox's tips on making the most of online sites and avoiding danger". Daily Record. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  8. ↑ "Exposed: The Secret History of Britain's Nuclear Experiments". Amazon . 29 November 2024. Retrieved 7 February 2025.
  9. ↑ fleetstreetfox (26 October 2009). "has it come to this? Is life not inane enough?". Twitter. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  10. ↑ "fleet street fox".
  11. ↑ Boniface, Susie (11 February 2013). "Confessions of the woman behind @fleetstreetfox". The Times. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  12. ↑ Higham, Nick (21 February 2013). "Meet the Author: Susie Boniface". BBC News. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  13. ↑ Magnanti, Brooke (12 February 2013). "Fleet Street Fox: anonymity was crucial to my freedom". The Telegraph. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  14. ↑ Godwin, Richard (11 May 2012). "Revealed: The secret Twitter stars getting themselves into a web of". Evening Standard. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  15. ↑ McSmith, Andy (11 February 2013). "So Susie Boniface is 'Fleet Street Fox': what a surprise". The Independent Blogs. Archived from the original on 14 February 2013.
  16. ↑ Burchill, Julie (2013). "Not fleet, not foxy, not funny". British Journalism Review. 24 (2): 70–71. doi:10.1177/095647480813492477. S2CID   147512564. Archived from the original on 7 March 2016.
  17. ↑ "Books".
  18. ↑ "Exposed: The Secret History of Britain's Nuclear Experiments". Amazon . 29 November 2024. Retrieved 7 February 2025.
  19. ↑ ""It was proof the MoD had been lying all this time"". BBC . 18 November 2024. Retrieved 7 February 2025.
  20. ↑ Ponsford, Dominic (25 February 2009). "Press Gazette British Press Awards 2009: The shortlist". Press Gazette. Archived from the original on 3 February 2014. Retrieved 25 February 2009.
  21. ↑ "News-Bite: CRAPP winners announced". esPResso. December 2011. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  22. ↑ Deans, Jason (22 May 2013). "BBC Newsnight journalists win award for spiked Jimmy Savile investigation". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  23. ↑ "Sunday Times leads the way as nominations announced for Society of Editors Press Awards". Press Gazette. 28 February 2014. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
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