Siobhan Moran-McFarlane is currently working as an Executive Producer at Mamamia’s The Quicky, a daily podcast that reports on current affairs, events, and the top news stories from around the world.
Siobhan explains that she spends most of her day booking guests and writing scripts and promotional materials, as well as strategizing about what episodes we might want now, episodes we might want the following week…and adjusting to all the breaking news as it happens.
“The cycle just goes on, carrying on for the next day.”
Siobhan first started her career in the media industry in 2018 after studying International Affairs and quickly began working in the Australian government ‘straight out of uni’.
She explains that after working in this field for a few years she began to feel depressed, and says that the layers and layers of bureaucracy and sign-offs made her feel redundant to a greater cause.
“I never felt like anything I was doing impacted anyone on the other end, it felt like it just got buried all the time.”
Wanting to have a different career that had a more immediate and direct impact, Siobhan remembered her love for radio and podcasts and began studying journalism.
Siobhan then started her own community radio show, began working as a presenter and producer in commercial radio stations including for The John Laws Morning Show, before landing her current role at Mamamia.
If she were to go back in time to give her younger self advice, Siobhan says that joining the media industry sooner rather than later would be her priority.
Siobhan says that she felt a bit late to the party when she started working in the media industry, as she joined at an older age than most of her peers.
“The hardest thing to overcome is to not feel fazed by younger colleagues who’ve worked in media for their whole career.”
Mamamia’s uniqueness in the Australian media-sphere, Siobhan explains, is the outlet’s primary focus on delivering news for women, as well as having women working behind the scenes.
“When you work in most news outlets they are run by men, frankly pale, male, and stale,” she jokes.
Siobhan says that working at Mamamia is ‘a lot more of an equal environment,’ as she is no longer experiencing the pressure of feeling like an outsider.
“It makes a world of difference to the content we put out, the approach, the working environment, it’s night and day”.
“When you have women at the helm, it’s a lot different… We are talking with women and not at women”.
With a background in international studies, government and emergency management, Siobhan finds the skills she learned previously help with her daily research process for The Quicky.
“I have a good base of knowledge of many different countries, cultures, and world leaders, so when we create an episode with an international focus I already have a solid base of understanding to get started.”
Siobhan also expresses her relief with working at an outlet that isn’t restricted by appeasing the government or any corporations, describing work at Mamamia as having ‘true editorial freedom’.
Describing her work ethic as old-school, Siobhan finds that working in a variety of roles in radio and podcasts, such as behind the scenes with production or as the presenter and host of a program, gives her a much greater appreciation for how much work goes into every side of a show.
“It’s an awful lot of work, but the more effort you put into all the different production elements the better the end result.”
Siobhan also says that working in a range of different roles helps her be a better team player to support her co-workers.
“If someone is off sick, or if someone is having a bad day where they’ve got 400 things to do I can jump in and do whatever needs to be done.”
“It’s all about being committed to the whole end product.”
Siobhan’s pitching preferences:
“I think generally email is better because then I’ll always see it.”
For more pitching preferences and industry-level insights, download our 2022 Media Landscape Report.
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