Jacob Mcsweeny

About

My work as a journalist has taken me across New Zealand in a range of newsrooms and roles. Those include Radio New Zealand (RNZ), the Whanganui Chronicle (NZME) and the Otago Daily Times (Allied Press). In that time I have largely worked as a general news reporter and enjoyed chasing and breaking my own stories in print, online, video or radio. More recently I have worked as a senior business reporter for the ODT and as an assistant news director at the Chronicle where I am now (second stint). At the ODT I was tasked with pulling together two to three business pages for each edition of the paper. That involved writing my own stories as well as collating those from other reporters at the company or other news organisations. As an assistant news director at the Chronicle I help reporters with their stories before putting together the newspaper and website. Where I can I still do the odd shift as a reporter, which keeps the itch scratched. In 2019 I took a sojourn into another career altogether - leaving Whanganui to train and become a qualified arborist. I have since worked as a Level 4 Arborist for Tree Truck Ltd in Whanganui, before my return to the Chronicle.