Aletta Harrison

Aletta is a freelance journalist, filmmaker and educator with a passion for environmental and conservation video storytelling.

 

Born in South Africa, she emigrated to England as a teenager, and started her career at a local radio station in the Channel Islands in 2008. In 2010 she settled in Cape Town where she worked as a multimedia journalist for 10 years.

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During this time she covered a wide variety of daily news and features, but quickly gained recognition for her environmental reporting, winning awards for features on water pollution and marine poaching as a multimedia journalist for Eyewitness News.

 

In 2016 she pursued longer-form pieces as a freelancer, and travelled to Uganda to cover the South Sudan refugee crisis, co-produced a television documentary on the diabetes epidemic as well as television pieces for international clients.

 

A year later she joined News24, where she was responsible for overseeing online short documentaries and interactive features at the largest news site in South Africa. During this time she won more awards for stories with environmental themes, specifically looking at the impacts of drought.

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Her work has appeared online and on television, both in South Africa and abroad, and clients include UNICEF, Mongabay, Hakai Magazine, TRT World, Times LIVE, Primedia Broadcasting, Chronicle, Health-e News, GroundUp, Anadolu Agency, Moneyweb, Where The Leaves Fall and Research Professional News.

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Since 2020 she has been living in the UK and teaches part-time at the University of Kent's Centre for Journalism.