Debbie Ransome was born in the UK of Trinidadian parents. She studied in the UK before visiting Trinidad, falling in love with the Caribbean and working there as a journalist during the 1980s. Her jobs included News Director at Radio Trinidad, Trinidad Bureau Chief and Editor at the Caribbean News Agency (now CMC) and stringer for the BBC. She returned to the UK to take up a job as a producer at the BBC’s Caribbean Service and went on to work for BBC World TV, BBC World Service Radio newsroom, Asia Today and on the BBC’s Broadcasting House Relocation project. She served as Head of the BBC’s Caribbean Service from 1998 until 2011. During that time, the Service added to its role as the Caribbean’s premier regional news programme to become its key source of online news through bbccaribbean.com.
Before leaving the BBC, Debbie worked with Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and BBC News Online. She then started a freelance portfolio which includes the Diaspora news website Caribbean Intelligence, editor of the Commonwealth Journalists’ Association (CJA) newsletter, work with a Caribbean Diaspora charity, the Caribbean Skills Bank, work with the BBC and her main time goes to her role as website editor for the Commonwealth Round Table to which she also contributes website articles.
She’s become something of a Twitter geek, having been bitten by the social media bug during the BBC’s award-winning coverage of Haiti’s 2010 earthquake. Debbie also sits on CJA’s international executive committee and the executive committee of the CJA’s UK branch. She turns up as a co-presenter for the BBC World Service’s annual Commonwealth Day radio broadcast.
