Where are they now? Jodie O’Brien, back in Australia

Jodie O’Brien worked at the Citizen-Times about 2001. Now she’s with the Courier Mail newspaper in Australia. Here’s her bio:

Jodie Munro O’Brien is a senior police and often military reporter for the Courier Mail.
She completed a Bachelor of Arts degree and an honours degree in journalism at Central Queensland University in between nights out dancing in Rockhampton, which she swears was only a couple of years ago.

Jodie started her full-time career halfway through her honours degree at the local Rural Press-owned weekly newspaper in the same city in mid-1997. A few months earlier, she was one of two honours students who were lucky enough to be sent to Indonesia to participate in a month-long internship at the Jakarta Post.

She moved to the US in September 1998, where she first worked on the copy desk of a daily newspaper in Western Pennsylvania, subbing and laying out pages using QuarkXPress.

After about a year at the PA paper, Jodie and her American husband, Tom, moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. Now able to remember to stay on the right side of the road when driving in the US (very important in that country), she worked as the city council reporter and then the chief police reporter at a Media General-owned daily newspaper outside of Charlotte, while also freelancing for a magazine owned by the Charlotte Observer.

A couple of years later, they moved to Asheville, NC, in the midst of the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains, where she worked as the night police reporter for a Gannett-owned daily newspaper and freelanced on the side for an outdoors magazine.

Despite loving the mountains, Jodie (originally from tropical FNQ) was tired of cold, snowy winters. The promise of more scuba diving and warmer weather called to Jodie and her husband and they eventually moved to Central Florida, outside Orlando, in September 2005. Jodie worked for a daily newspaper – in one of the most media-competitive parts of Florida – first covering government before returning to her passion, being the chief police and court reporter. Having Disneyworld, Seaworld, Universal Studios and Busch Gardens all within an hours drive did not hurt either. 🙂

Over the years Jodie has enjoyed a couple of stints as acting chief-of-staff, was lucky enough to pick up a couple of journalism awards along the way, covered too many murdered children stories, and remains amazed that Tom is always understanding of Jodie receiving phone calls for breaking news in the middle of many nights or on weekends.

Jodie, Tom and their blue heeler (she has an American bark ;)) all moved to Brisbane in May 2006, where Jodie worked for Gold Coast Publications as the city council and then education reporter for about nine months, before coming to The Courier-Mail in 2007. They have now added another addition to their family a border collie and when not at work can be found out and about trying in vain to wear out their dogs, trying to find a way to travel or scuba diving as much as possible.

You can contact Jodie at (07) 3666 6397 or obrienjm@qnp.newsltd.com.au