Michelle Rawlins
School of Information, Journalism and Communication
University Teacher
+44 114 222 2531
Full contact details
School of Information, Journalism and Communication
C639
The Wave
2 Whitham Road
Sheffield
S10 2AH
- Profile
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Michelle Rawlins is an award-winning journalist, teacher, author, ghostwriter and copywriter with 30 years' experience working for national newspapers, magazines and online publications.
Michelle has built a long and consistent career from interviewing people in all walks of life and turning their words into print for traditional media and digital platforms.
After initially cutting her teeth at three fast-paced press agencies, at the age of 23 Michelle went on to build a highly successful freelance career.
Michelle has produced a vast myriad of true-life, health and news articles for national newspapers, including the Daily Mirror, The Telegraph, Sun, The Guardian, The Telegraph and the Daily Mail, alongside being a regular supplier of features and reports to women’s magazines, including Take A Break, Bella, Closer, That’s Life, Slimming World and Chat. She is also proactive in securing a place on the couch on shows including This Morning, Good Morning Britain, Loose Women and the Victoria Derbyshire show, for those she works with to ensure they gain maximum media attention.
As well as writing true-life articles, Michelle has also helped launch campaigns to change the law, raised tens of thousands of pounds for children who needed life-changing surgery. She has sensitively and empathetically represented people across the media during the most testing times of their lives, as well as exposing scandals and highlighting ground-breaking medical developments with the most heart-warming of results.
Photo credit: Scott Merrylees
- Research interests
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Michelle’s research interest focuses on ethical reporting of domestic abuse. She has created a groundbreaking Domestic Abuse Toolkit which aims to support journalism students, educators, journalists and editors to use the correct terminology, and to frame and present news stories in a way that centres the survivors of domestic abuse to help create meaningful change.
The toolkit is a comprehensive set of interactive guidelines, teaching materials and resources to help and support anyone reporting on domestic abuse, stalking, 'honour'-based abuse and harmful practices.
The Domestic Abuse Toolkit was funded by the Association for Journalism Education (AJE) UK, and developed in collaboration with several charities including Sheffield Women's Aid, IDAS (Independent Domestic Abuse Service), SAVERA UK and the Suzy Lamplugh Trust.
This builds on Michelle’s extensive work with charities, including focus groups in which survivors of domestic abuse shared their perceptions of the media.
- Books and other activities
Michelle has also written nine books. These include co-authoring ‘For My Boys’, with leading domestic abuse campaigner, Claire Throssell, calling on the government to repeal ‘presumption of contact’ in the family courts. Michelle’s other books include ghost-writting an autobiographical life story for Penguin as well as writing a non-fiction social history book, Women of Steel, with Headline Books, uncovering some of the most fascinating stories of the formidable women who worked in the Sheffield steel industry during World War Two. Following this Michelle wrote a six-book fictional series, on the same women, for Harper Collins.
Michelle was awarded the International Media Award from Variety, the Children’s Charity, in November 2018.
After engaging and co-facilitating media workshops for several years, Michelle took on a journalism teaching post at the University of Sheffield in September 2019, working across several areas including media law, news writing and writing for the media.
A passionate journalist, Michelle still has her feet firmly rooted in the media industry, as she continually writes and produces articles for the mainstream media.