Jennifer Burt – as a baby!

Former Leicester Mercury health correspondent Jennifer Burt is helping to bring advice and reassurance to mums across the UK – with the help of the regional press.

In November last year, Jennifer left the Mercury – where she had worked since May 1995 – to become editor of the Oxfordshire-based website www.babyworld.co.uk

“The site had existed for about three years,” said Ms Burt. “It was originally owned by Radcliffe Medical Press, but then it was bought by Freeserve, and that’s when I got involved.”

A popular feature of the website was an Ask The Experts column, but with her knowledge and experience of the regional press, Ms Burt decided to offer it free of charge to regional daily papers.

Already six papers have taken up the offer and are getting a good response from their readers.

Ms Burt, who spent two years at the North West Evening Mail before joining the Mercury, is enjoying the challenge and the change of working for the Internet.

“I hadn’t had that much experience of websites before I joined babyworld.co.uk, but one of the things I love most about it is the immediacy of being able to change things as soon as you want to instead of having to wait for the next deadline of the paper,” she said.

“The only thing I would say I miss about print journalism is the face-to-face contact with people. Every journalist in a local newspaper office complains about having to do interviews over the telephone, but now I really have to do all my interviews over the phone. Fortunately, I’ve made very good contacts through four-and-a-half years as health correspondent at the Mercury and that has stood me in very good stead.”

Anyone who would like to contact her about babyworld.co.uk – or the column she can offer newspapers – can E-mail her at [email protected]

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