Frances Yeoman
Liverpool Screen School
Faculty of Arts Professional and Social Studies
Email: F.H.Yeoman@ljmu.ac.uk
Telephone: 0151 231 4837
Fran Yeoman runs the journalism department at LJMU and teaches at both undergraduate and postgraduate level across our courses. She has received grants and funding from both the British Academy and Ofcom for her research into news and media literacy, on which she has worked with stakeholders including Ofcom, DCMS, DSIT and the News Literacy Network. She is a trustee of the Media and Information Literacy Alliance and sits on Ofcom's Making Sense of the Media Advisory Panel, as well as being a member of the Academic Advisory Group of the APPG on Media and Political Literacy and the research advisory group of the Public Interest News Foundation. She served on the DCMS/DSIT Media Literacy Taskforce Steering Board from 2021-2025. She also has a research interest in court reporting and its impact on prisoners' families, and is working on a project on about this with Dr Lorna Brookes, funded by the Merseyside Violence Reduction Partnership. Before joining LJMU, she spent over a decade on national newspapers, most recently as Assistant Editor of i, where she oversaw the paper’s news output. She previously worked for the Independent and The Times, as a news editor and reporter, and spent a year as a political reporter based at Westminster. She has reported from countries including Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Greece and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and co-authored a Rough Guide to South America. She holds a BA in Modern History and an M.St. in Historical Research from the University of Oxford, and completed her journalism training at the Press Association’s training centre. She continues to work as a journalist when time permits.
Internet publication
Yeoman F, Polizzi G, d'Arcy J, Harris R, Yates S. 2024. Challenges and best practice in media literacy provision: Key findings from five areas of the UK Publisher Url
Yeoman F. 2023. Should news organisations be responsible for teaching news literacy? Publisher Url
Yeoman F, Morris K. 2020. Why media education in schools needs to be about much more than 'fake news' Publisher Url
Davies R, Yeoman F. 2018. Philanthrophy Should Fund the Media for its Own Sake in Alliance Magazine
Report
Yeoman F, Polizzi G, D'Arcy J, Harris R, Yates S, Barrera P. 2024. Exploring challenges and best practice in media literacy: A UK regional case study approach Exploring challenges and best practice in media literacy: A UK regional case study approach Publisher Url
Behavioural Insights Team , Yeoman F, Yates S. 2023. Media literacy uptake among ‘hard to reach’ citizens Publisher Url Public Url
Yeoman F, Morris K. 2022. Media literacy, evaluation and Ofcom: stakeholder perspectives (internal Ofcom report with public-facing exec summary)
Journal article
Yeoman F. 2023. The challenge of defining news literacy: Perceptions from the UK news literacy sector Journalism, :1-18 DOI Publisher Url Public Url
Yeoman F, Morris K. 2023. The Place of Media Organisations in the Drive for Post-pandemic News Literacy Journalism Practice, DOI Publisher Url Public Url
Morris K, Yeoman F. 2021. Teaching Future Journalists the News: The Role of Journalism Educators in the News Literacy Movement Journalism Practice, DOI Author Url Publisher Url Public Url
Yeoman F, Morris K. 2019. Mapping the HE news literacy landscape in the UK Journalism Education, 8 :69-78 Publisher Url Public Url
Chapters
Yeoman F, Morris K. 2023. The Agenda-Setting Power of Fake News Fowler-Watt K, McDougall J. The Palgrave Handbook of Media Misinformation :265-278 Springer Nature 9783031119767
Yeoman F. 2022. Journalists and Social Media: Entering an 'ethical vacuum' Duncan S. Ethics for Journalists Routledge 9781138585263
Media Coverage:
How information voids can fuel a crisis: lessons from Southport's media response 2025
Public engagement:
Public talk or lecture, Media industry, academics, civil society, Invited speaker, Crisis, Trust & the Media: What We Learned from Southport, Public webinar. 2025
Public talk or lecture, Journalists and editors; civil society; educators, Panellist/ speaker, IPSO Expert View Seminar: Reporting of Children, Webinar held by press regulator the Independent Press Standards Organisation to discuss ethical and regulatory issues around reporting children, marking publication of its first guidance on the issue to accompany the Editors' Code, https://www.ipso.co.uk/resources-guidance/advice-and-information-for-the-public/guidance-on-the-reporting-of-children-webinar/. 2025
Public consultation, Policymakers, Invited speaker, Oral evidence: House of Lords inquiry into media literacy, https://committees.parliament.uk/event/24215/formal-meeting-oral-evidence-session/. 2025
Public consultation, Policymakers, Submission of published written evidence, Written evidence: House of Lords inquiry inquiry into media literacy, https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/140199/pdf/. 2025
Public talk or lecture, Policymakers; academics; journalism industry; regulators; educators, Invited speaker, Ofcom Making Sense of Media Conference: Panel session on 'Professional Journalism as an Antidote to Misinformation'. 2024
Public talk or lecture, Academics, regulators, policymakers, Invited speaker, Digital literacy provision in the UK: Challenges and possible solutions: panel discussion. 2024
Public talk or lecture, News media industry (journalists and National Union of Journalists) and journalism educators, Invited speaker (presenting research on court reporting and its impact on prisoners' families), NUJ Ethics council webinar: protecting vulnerable people. 2024
Public consultation, House of Lords Communications and Digital Select Committee inquiry:, Author, Written evidence to inquiry: The future of news: impartiality, trust, and technology, https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/128482/pdf/. 2024
Public talk or lecture, News media industry (journalists/ editors); journalism educators; trainee and student journalists, Panel chair, BBC Media City, Salford, Building a neuro-inclusive workforce and the benefits it presents, https://www.nctj.com/events/equality-diversity-and-inclusion-conference-2023/. 2023
Public talk or lecture, Journalists and journalism educators, Invited speaker, Gender equality in sports journalism: International Women's Day seminar, https://www.nctj.com/news/numbers-of-female-sports-journalists-shouldnt-be-just-a-quota-say-industry-panellists-at-nctj-event-to-champion-women-in-sports-journalism/. 2023
Public talk or lecture, Academics, journalists, Podcast guest, Discussion about research into news literacy, The J Word Podcast. 2022
Conference presentation:
Oral presentation, Salford, UK, Journalism and the Courts Symposium, Collateral damage? Open court reporting and its impact on the children of defendants. 2025
Oral presentation, LJMU, Liverpool, EDI in Journalism Education, Training inclusive journalists: student-led resources to embed EDI. 2024
Oral presentation, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, Global Media Education Summit, "Pedagogic public relations?" Perceptions of media industry involvement in UK news literacy education. 2023
Oral presentation, Association of Journalism Educators Winter Conference 2023, Teaching a Broader Journalism: Developing the Resources to Embed Inclusivity and Diversity in the Journalism Curriculum. 2023
Oral presentation, Cardiff University/ online, Cardiff Future of Journalism Conference, “Fast food companies teaching children about nutrition”? The place of media organisations in the drive for post-pandemic news literacy. 2021
Oral presentation, Paris, World Journalism Education Congress, Mapping the HE News Literacy Landscape. 2019
External collaboration:
Lessons from Southport: Crisis, disinformation and public trust: collaborative project with Francois Nel (UCLAN) plus media industry and civil society, Lessons from Southport: Crisis, disinformation and public trust, https://mediainnovationstudio.org/when-the-truth-isnt-enough-lessons-from-southport/. 2025
Francois Nel (UCLAN) and others, News Futures 2035 Project: News Literacy Policy Brief. 2024
External committees:
Ofcom, Ofcom Making Sense of the Media Advisory Panel, https://www.ofcom.org.uk/media-use-and-attitudes/media-literacy/making-sense-of-media/. 2024
Media and Information Literacy Alliance, Trustee, Board of Trustees. 2024
Becoming NewsWise (funded by Nuffield Foundation), Board Member, Becoming NewsWise Advisory Board. 2023
National Council for the Training of Journalists, NCTJ Social Mobility Taskforce. 2023
UK Government, Member, Media Literacy Taskforce Steering Board, https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/media-literacy-taskforce-steering-board. 2022
Conference organisation:
Co-organiser, Association of Journalism Education. 2024
EDI in Journalism Education, https://www.ljmu.ac.uk/conferences/edi-in-journalism. 2024
Co-organiser, European Journalism Training Association conference 2023, https://www.ljmu.ac.uk/conferences/ejta-teachers-conference. 2023
Award:
National Council for the Training of Journalists, Awards for Excellence: EDI Organisation of the Year (Journalism team), https://www.ljmu.ac.uk/about-us/news/articles/2024/3/27/journalism-programmes-receive-nctj-award-for-equality-diversity-and-inclusion. 2024
LJMU, Teaching Excellence Awards: EDI (Journalism team). 2023
Other Professional Activity:
Written evidence in response to call for evidence: Legislative Scrutiny of Victims and Prisoners Bill (Joint Committee on Human Rights), https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/122663/pdf/. 2023
Reponse to Inquiry: Future of Journalism. House of Lords Select Committee on Communications, https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/2407/pdf/. 2020
Research Grants Awarded:
Duration of research project: 2 years, Grant value (£): 9734, British Academy/ Leverhulme, Kate Morris, Goldsmiths, News Literacy: Understanding the UK Landscape. 2023
Duration of research project: 7 months, Grant value (£): 24,998, British Academy, Professor Simeon Yates, University of Liverpool (PI), Exploring challenges and best practice in digital inequalities: A case studies approach from the perspective of policymakers in England. 2023
Grant value (£): 1980, Association for Journalism Education, News Literacy on UK Journalism degree programmes. 2018
Teaching qualification:
PG Cert HE. 2018
Fellowships:
Higher Education Academy, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). 2018