Lis Howell

Who is Lis Howell?

Lis Howell is director of broadcasting at City University, London, running the broadcasting and television journalism programmes, and also deputy head of the journalism department. She is an award-winning journalist who went on to become a senior executive in British television and also writes murder-mystery novels.

The City broadcasting courses turn out 200 postgraduates a year from their domestic courses and another 90 international students. Most domestic students get production jobs within the established news broadcasters.

Howell was born in Liverpool in 1951 and was educated at the Liverpool Institute for Girls and the University of Bristol, where she read English Literature. She got a diploma in teacher training from Leeds Trinity & All Saints and soon after was offered a reporting job by Radio Leeds.

In 1977 she became the first woman reporter at Border Television and, two years later, went to Granada Television, then Tyne Tees Television from 1981 to 1984. She then decided to quit journalism, opting to become the village postmistress at Mawbray, in northern Cumbria, opening a small restaurant in the adjoining barn and having a baby, Alex, in 1984.