Biography
Karen Coleman is one of Ireland's top broadcasters with a distinguished career in news and current affairs reporting and broadcast presentation. Her work includes a nine year stint with the BBC working in both radio and television news and current affairs. Karen has reported for the BBC from some of the toughest hot spots in the world including Belfast, Sarajevo, Belgrade, Kosovo and Serbia. She's also reported from Albania, Indonesia, Turkey, the United States, Northern Cyprus, Japan, Israel, the Palestinian Territories and much of the European continent.
Karen's current broadcasting work includes hosting the three times award-winning show The Wide Angle with Karen Coleman on Dublin's Newstalk106 radio. The programme's mix of international and Irish issues and one-2-one interviews with high-profile guests, makes the Wide Angle a unique showcase for innovative broadcasting in Ireland. Karen's sharp and witty style has earned her a reputation of being one of the most formidable talents in Irish broadcasting.
She began conflict reporting in 1990 when she went to Belfast in Northern Ireland to work with the BBC. The city was tense back then with the IRA's bombing campaign still a threat. Her investigative work in Belfast brought her into a murky turf-war between the official and the provisional IRA. That took her into the heart of republican land in Belfast where British army soldiers monitored the streets from high towers.
A lucrative contract offer by the BBC in Scotland lured Karen to Glasgow for a five year stint where she worked for BBC radio and television news and current affairs. The war in Bosnia beckoned and Karen eventually went to the Balkans in 1995 to work initially as a television producer for the United Nations. Karen spent three years altogether in the region reporting for the BBC on the Bosnian war and its aftermath. She then went on to cover the war in Kosovo where she was one of the few western journalists to report on the development of the conflict there in 1997.
A desire to return to her home country brought Karen back to Ireland in 1999 following a stint as a reporter with BBC Radio 4's prestigious Today programme. These days she covers both Irish and international issues from her base in Dublin. Her weekly Wide Angle show on Newstalk106 includes a mix of panel discussions and individual interviews. It's already clocked up four nominations and three awards including the Irish radio equivalent of the Oscars with the PPI 2002 award for 'Best Current Affairs Radio Show' and the prestigious 2004 ESB Media Award for best radio documentary. This last accolade was awarded to Karen for her excellent one-hour radio documentary on the effects of the war on Iraq. Called 'Iraq - One year on' it included compelling contributions from Celeste Zappalla, the American mother of a young soldier, Sherwood Baker, who was killed in action in Iraq in 2004.