Louise has been involved in mentoring and education throughout her career.
In November 2017, Louise co-founded The Second Source to address sexual harassment in journalism. They set up a mentoring scheme which paired over 100 young women journalists with a mentor, and Louise mentors two journalists as part of this. The group consulted on a report for the European Parliament on gender equality in the media sector, which was adopted successfully and includes points on freelancing and harassment.
Louise was an associate lecturer at Birkbeck, University of London, teaching a postgraduate module in web journalism from 2016 to 2018. She revamped the curriculum in 2017 to include sessions on fake news and the role of online media in a democracy.
She fundraised for a year for global education charity WE, and is part of the Women of the Future Ambassadors Programme, giving mentoring and careers advice to sixth-formers. She is an Associate Fellow of the Royal Commonwealth Society, working to promote education and opportunities for young people.
In 2017 she was a judge for the BAFTAs in the television news coverage category which was won by Victoria Derbyshire: Football Abuse. She has also judged the Student Publication Awards, Digiday Europe Video Awards and the Women In Marketing Awards, where she set up a new category for journalists who cover marketing.
She has spoken in schools and on panels including the Westminster Forum and Omniwomen.
Media appearances
Louise has appeared on media including BBC News, BBC 5 Live, 5 News, TalkRADIO, Share Radio, and LBC. She is a regular newspaper reviewer on BBC Radio London and guest on The Media Podcast with Olly Mann. Below are some examples.
As a guest commentator on BBC The Papers, reviewing the next day’s front pages:
As a regular guest on The Media Podcast with Olly Mann, she discussed the week’s media industry news.
She appeared in various national media to talk about The Second Source, which she co-founded to address sexual harassment in journalism:
Speaking about media and advertising on 5 News:
Presenting Facebook Live broadcasts for HuffPost:
Louise Ridley 