Portfolio

American Music News

American Music News is the website I started in 2016 about American and Canadian music. Every time there were new releases, I posted it on the website. At the end of 2018 I stopped posting on this website, because then I was working on my other websites Belgic Music and Dreamelyne, which you can read more about on the right and here below.

Belgic Music

Belgic Music is the other music website I started in 2017. We have a lot of great artists in Belgium who should also be known outside of the country. That's why I started this website which gave you updates on all the new releases in Belgian music. Every week I wrote about the new releases. I also started a Belgic Music podcast in which I talked about different Belgian artists. Every episode was about another Belgian artist. I ended that podcast and blog when I started a new one about my other big passion: films and series. You can read more about it here below.

During my time in Canada I started two podcasts. The one for Belgic Music where I talked about Belgian artists and this one named Six To See which is about my other passions, movies and series. I had quite some free time because of the virus, which made it very difficult to find a job, so I used it to learn new things and also start this podcast. During those months of the lockdown, I noticed that I missed it to talk about movies and series, which I did every week in Belgium on Urgent.fm with Emelyne Heeft Gezien.

So I decided to start this podcast about movies and series. On every episode, I talked about six new movies and/or series that are recently released or will release that week and I also talk about other movies and series news like new trailers, new season announcements, etc.

After a time it wasn't possible to record the episodes anymore, so I started a blog instead. Every week I write about the six new releases you should see from that week and also the new trailers that were released. Once and a while I might make an audio episode, so the podcast is not totally gone, and Six To See is neither. I really love to write and talk about movies and series, so this bog and podcast will stay.

You can still  listen to all the episodes I made on anchor.fm/six-to-see or anywhere you listen to podcasts. At first you could find my blog on six-to-see.jimdosite.com, but since a few months I made a new one which you can find on sixtosee.com.

Freelance regional journalist HLN (& VRT NWS/Radio 2 West-Vlaanderen)

On February 1st, 2022, I started my first real job as a freelance regional journalist for the paper Het Laatste Nieuws. I was and for now still are responsible for the cities Middelkerke, Gistel and Oudenburg, and sometimes I also helped out in Oostende, my hometown. In a year and a half I met a lot of amazing people and wrote more than 1.000 articles for the paper and their online website. Since January 1st, 2023, I am also doing this for VRT NWS/Radio 2 West-Vlaanderen for Middelkerke and Oudenburg. If you look for the articles I did for HLN, just search for the articles with my name on it. Here below are some of my favourite articles I made from the past year and a half that I worked at the paper.

Beluister nu ook tien Oostendse muziekverhalen op de Babbelbanken
I'm starting with the very first article I made on my first day about a new podcast the city of Oostende launched about the history of music in the city.

During my time at HLN, I wrote quite a lot of articles about music. Two of them are about bands that decided to stop playing together: Seagulls and The Flashbacks.

Proximus Pop-up Arena klaar voor tweede zomer: hier zijn concerten die je zeker niet mag missen
The things I liked to do the most were of course about music and films. During the summer, there are a lot of music events happening, like the Proximus pop-up arena in Middelkerke. I also made an article about the opening of the Q beach house, which was amazing because Qmusic has always been my favourite radio station.

Vier jaar na de vorige stoet zakken mensen massaal af naar carnaval in Oostduinkerke: “We hebben het dan ook erg gemist”
Sometimes I was also working in the weekends and had to go to even another city, like Oostduinkerke. This was my first time seeing a carnival parade.

Filmfestival Oostende 2023 officieel van start met openingsfilm ‘The Chapel’
As a big fan of films and tv, I was very happy to be able to report on the Film Festival of Oostende twice. The edition of 2023 was extra special because it was the 15th edition. I made several articles about it that you can all read right here.

Theater Aan Zee officieel van start met zomerse ceremonie
Another big event in Oostende that I wrote about is Theater Aan Zee (TAZ). I wrote several articles about it, from dancing  to music.

Nooit eerder zoveel Oostendse artiesten op podium van Paulusfeesten: “Arno zou het niet anders gewild hebben”
As a big fan of music, one of the events I had to write about was the Paulusfeesten in Oostende. I also wrote several articles about it including an interview with DJ Dimaro.

BINNENKIJKER. Het nieuwe Casino van Middelkerke krijgt stilaan vorm: “Ook buiten de landsgrenzen zal dit indruk maken”
As a regional journalist you have to write about a little bit of everything. So besides writing about music and films, I also had to write about other stuff, like big projects that are happening. One of the biggest projects right now is the newest casino in Middelkerke. I was able to see the building before it's done. And I was even there when it all started.

Fans wuiven Arno nog laatste keer uit op Westerstaketsel
I'm ending with a very special one. In April 2022 the legendary singer Arno died. A month later I made an article about fans who were saying goodbye while the boat with his ashes drove by. Not long before that, in March, I saw him at the Filmfestival in Oostende where he was getting honoured. This was a day I'll never forget. You can read that article right here.

These are only a few of the big articles I made that I'm proud of. I met a lot of amazing people the past year and a half and I hope to meet even more people in the future, especially film stars and musicians. On the photo here above you can see several of my articles that were in the newspaper. I kept all the big pieces I made, so I can always look back at everything I've already done. Since August 1 I stopped at the paper and the radio to find something that has more to do with my passions for movies, series, music, showbiz and culture. So if you know of a job, you can always contact me.

FilmTotaal & SerieTotaal

I've been looking for jobs in the movie and music business since I stopped at the paper and since the beginning of November 2023 I found a little something to do: writing articles for the Dutch film website FilmTotaal.nl. I write specials for them, featured articles that are about anything that has to do with movies. Since February 2024 I also write articles for their other website SerieTotaal.nl. I really love to write those articles and I hope I can find more websites for which I can write. Do you know one, you can always contact me.

Here below you can find some of the articles I wrote for the websites including the first two I ever wrote for them. If you want to read more of them, you can find them here.

Dreamelyne

In 2017, I was able to go to Canada for the first time to study. I studied Broadcasting - Radio for one semester at Fanshawe College in London, Ontario and that's the reason I started my own blog about my journey to and in Canada. I wrote about the things I was doing there, so people could follow along.

Going back to Canada after two years, made me write on this blog again. The whole year that I was in Canada, I wrote about my experiences and what I was doing. During my time in Canada, I took a lot of pictures. I really love photgraphy and love to make pictures of nature. You can see some of my pics on my Flickr account and you can find the blog on dreamelyne.jimdofree.com.

During my time studying radio at Fanshawe, I made radio at their radio stations CFRL and The Falcon. Most of the time I was on CFRL, but I also was on The Falcon twice.

I had a lot of fun making radio on CFRL and The Falcon. Here are some links to a few of my shows I hosted on CFRL and The Falcon.


Urgent.fm

When I was making radio at Fanshawe, it was not my first time making radio. Since my first year of Journalism, in 2016, I started to go to Urgent.fm. Urgent.fm is the student radio station of the University of Ghent and everyone who wants to join is free to come. So for almost four years I volunteered at Urgent.fm and made some radio. I was part of the group making the program Spoetnik which is on air from Monday until Thursday from 5 to 7pm. I tried to go every week. I started there as a member of the editorial office and climbed my way up in the  following years to co-host and host.

Many of the shows I made at Urgent.fm are on their Mixcloud account so you can relisten to the shows whenever you want. Here are a few links to some of the shows I made, just like the very last one on October 3rd, 2019, just a few days before I left for Canada.

The last year of my studies of Journalism I had my internship. I did it at kleinVerhaal, a social artistic organisation in Ostend. My internship was ten weeks long, from February 2019 until April 2019. At kleinVerhaal they organise events around culture like music and movies and bring people together with their evenings. I really liked to be there and had an amazing time. During my internship there, I was responsible for their social media accounts. I started an Instagram account because they hadn't had one yet and I also managed their Facebookpage.

I also made content by making videos of their events and I participated with the book club they were working with. For the book club I made an audio piece with interviews of the people of the book club and I was present during their evenings where they came together to read the book. I read the book myself so that I knew the story and also to be able to make the audio piece.
Here below are the links to their social media and the link to my audio piece:


Before doing my internship at kleinVerhaal, I already knew the organisation because of a podcast they started, Radio Onderstroom. I heard about this and wanted to help. With a little group of people we made a podcast about newcomers in Ostend. I helped recording and editing the podcast. There is a long rough version and a master version which you can listen to both here. With a few of those people we also made another audio piece for another organisation named Demos about culture and vicinity. You can listen to it here.

School projects

Studying Journalism means a lot of projects: reports, interviews, press conferences, online articles... We had to do it all. Because of my studies I had a lot of opportunities and made some cool projects. Here are a few of my favourites. For even more audio pieces I made for school, you can listen to them here.

ODG Ireland

One of the last projects at school is ODG, Beyond The Borders. For one week you go outside of Belgium with a group to make an online project. I went to Ireland with two other people for this project about Ireland and the Brexit.

Read More

BAP Veganism

Another project you have to do in the last year is the thesis (bachelorproof in Dutch). With a group of four we made our thesis about veganism with as head question 'What if everyone was vegan?'

Read More

COP Plastic

The practical course of Journalism is divided in different roles. The last one is COP, Creative and venturous professional. For this role I made an online project about plastic and I used some digital apps we learned about.

Read More

A role and project I really liked was mobile editorial for Digital Creative. I'm a big basketball fan, so for this project I went to a basketball game of BC Oostende, the basketball team of my hometown Ostend. I had to tweet live and then I interviewed some of the players. You can hear those interviews here.

Some other interesting things I did for school is interview the ex-major of Ostend and I also followed him for a day for a photography project. I interviewed Steven Sleuyter,  the boss of the company Sleuyter, about his hobby which is ultrarunning. I also went to a few press conferences like the one from the Filmfestival of Ostend. There I interviewed actor Kevin Janssens and radiomaker Jan Hautekiet.

Not everything I have done was for school. In the summer of 2016 I had the opportunity to interview one of my favourite Belgian artists Laura Tesoro. That day she performed at the Harvest festival in Aalter and before her performance I was fortunate to interview her live on Radio Meteor. See the interview here.