The Poke is brought to you by an expert team of staff editors, writers and respected freelancers with years of experience writing about news and comedy, led by The Poke editor-in-chief John Plunkett and writer Oonagh Keating.
Editor-in-chief, The Poke
John has spent three decades writing about TV, media and popular culture. As broadcasting correspondent of the Guardian he spent many happy years presenting the paper’s MediaTalk podcast, interviewing the likes of Matt Berry, Armando Iannucci and Charlie Brooker.
A former chairman of the television critics association, the Broadcasting Press Guild, he presented their annual awards ceremony and has a whole bunch of photos of him standing next to A-list celebrities (pictures available on request).
He has also hosted events for Bafta and the Edinburgh TV Festival, and chaired the press jury prize at the Rose d’Or entertainment festival in Montreux.
Experience
John spent nearly 20 years at the Guardian, first as a freelance and then as a staff member on the Media Guardian team, editing the paper’s Media Monkey diary column. He first started writing about the television business at Broadcast magazine, before joining Heat and (briefly) The Sun.
He began his career in local newspapers at the Medway News in Kent and the Norwich Evening News. He has only done stand-up twice and on one of those occasions he was fortunate enough to share the bill with Greg Davies and Rhod Gilbert (before they were famous, obviously).
Education
John has an MA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University.
Expertise
Current affairs, popular culture, politics
Writer, The Poke
Oonagh Keating is fascinated with politics because it’s the only soap opera where Peggy Mitchell could triple the cost of your mortgage in an afternoon.
Her obsession with Columbo has yet to earn her a spot on Mastermind, but makes watching old films with her impossible as she insists on pointing out Columbo actors.
Writing about viral content and comedy has ruined her targeted ads forever.
Experience
Oonagh has dabbled in writing for money since the 1980s, but finally gave up her Olympic cycling dreams and turned fully professional in 2013 – partly because she doesn’t own a bike. Her writing work includes jokes for greetings cards, ghostwriting food and travel blogs and at least three articles entitled ‘What has the EU ever done for us?’. She was offered two weeks’ work at the Poke in 2018 and has refused to leave ever since.
Education
Oonagh graduated with a BA (Hons) in Maths Education from Liverpool Hope University.
Expertise
Politics, current affairs