Diana Neille is a 29-year-old journalist and media entrepreneur from Johannesburg, South Africa.
After completing her Masters degree in broadcast journalism and documentary film at Columbia University in New York in 2011, Diana returned to South Africa, where she worked at eNews Channel Africa, the country's first free-to-air, 24-hour television news station. She was instrumental in establishing their online division in 2012 as Executive Multimedia Producer, where she helped hire and manage a team of producers, established workflows and systems and produced both long-form and daily news coverage.
In 2014, Diana left corporate journalism and moved to Cape Town, where she began freelancing for the Daily Maverick, an award-winning news and opinion website. In August 2015 she established Chronicle, a production agency and subsidiary to the Daily Maverick focused on storytelling, that produces branded content and commercial projects in order to fund the production of long-form and investigative multimedia journalism.
Daily Maverick Chronicle recently won a CNN Multichoice African Journalism award for its investigation into outsourcing and labour malpractice at Coca-Cola bottler SABMiller.
Diana's goal is to develop Chronicle into the premier editorial producer of quality audio-visual stories and multimedia content in Southern Africa, to help improve the standards of storytelling and journalism in the country, while improving access to quality news and information for citizens.
Diana is also a full-time violinist and vocalist with the gypsy jazz band, Manouche.
Diana participated in the December 2016 MediaStorm Methodology Workshop. She had the following to say about her experience:
I enrolled in the MediaStorm Methodology Master Class, facilitated by Brian Storm, as a journalist and a media entrepreneur looking to establish a similar business model in Cape Town, South Africa. I have looked to MediaStorm for inspiration for several years now and was excited to get to understand how the company operates a bit better. I found the 5-day seminar extremely useful, relevant and energising. Everything from distribution and business practice to production techniques and effective storytelling were discussed in a comprehensive, honest and accessible manner. Almost everything that was discussed was relevant to me and my business and I came away with many methods and tips to implement. I am grateful to have had access to the learnings and insight from Brian and his team, who I found to be, above all, genuinely good human beings creating amazing work.
- Diana Neille, Managing Director of Chronicle. Cape Town, South Africa