Biography
Dr Wendy Sloane is the Deputy Dean of the School of Computing and Digital Media, an Associate Professor in Journalism, and the course leader for courses including Journalism BA (Hons) and Fashion Marketing and Journalism BA (Hons). She is a University Teaching Fellow, a Senior Fellow of the HEA, and was the Acting Head of Student Experience and Academic Outcomes for the School of Computing and Digital Media and the Princpal Lecturer in Creative Technologies and Digital Media.
She holds the following qualifications:
- PhD by prior output 'Dictators and Democracy: Reflective Journalistic Practice in Covering Post-Soviet Russia', London Metropolitan University (2024 - 2025)
- PG Cert in Teaching and Learning (London Metropolitan University, 2012)
- MA in International Affairs (Columbia University, W. Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union, 1987)
- BA in Political Science and Russian (Mt. Holyoke College, Massachusetts, 1985)
- Certificate in Russian Language and Literature (Pushkin State Russian Language Institute, Moscow, 1984)
Wendy started her career in 1988 as a reporter-researcher for Time Magazine, based in New York and then Vienna. After landing a fellowship to write for the pro-glasnost Soviet newspaper, Moscow News, she moved to Moscow and became the first American member of the Union of Soviet Journalists. She spent a total of seven years in the former Soviet Union, where she covered the coup that led to the Soviet collapse for The Associated Press before starting to write for western newspapers. As foreign correspondent for The Daily Telegraph and the US-based Christian Science Monitor, she wrote about the war in Chechnya, civil strife in Georgia and general post-coup upheaval, and travelled throughout much of what became the former USSR.
In 1995 Wendy left Moscow for London, working on the foreign desk of The Daily Telegraph before making a documentary about Utah polygamists for Channel 4. After selling the polygamy story to Marie Claire magazine, she went on to become its deputy features editor, then deputy editor of Eva Magazine and finally deputy editor of Woman’s Own, before going freelance.
In recent years she has written for websites as well as mainstream publications ranging from The Sunday Times and The London Economic to The Independent and The Sunday Mirror and the British Journalism Review (BJR) on topics ranging from business to bunions to Britain’s biggest breasts. She is currently on the Editorial Board of the BJR.
Wendy joined London Met in 2010, bringing with her extensive experience of working in virtually every print medium. This includes particular emphasis on writing for different audiences in different styles, magazine writing and online journalism, and developing freelance survival skills to adapt to an ever-changing journalistic landscape. In 2018, she started up the London Met Journalism Diversity Network, to give students more access to work placements in the competitive market. She also presents papers and workshops, does media training and practices her (excellent) Russian and (relatively poor) Finnish on unsuspecting students.
Teaching
- BA Journalism
- BA Journalism including Foundation Year
- BA Fashion Marketing and Journalism
- BA Fashion Marketing and Journalism including Foundation Year
- BA Journalism, Film and Television Studies
- BA Journalism, Film and Television Studies including Foundation Year
Research Interests
Wendy's recent research has focussed on Russian censorship, particularly in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine. Her book, Kremlin Media Wars: Censorship and Control Since the Invasion of Ukraine, was published by Routledge (2025). She is also a founding member of London Met's Gender and Sexual Diversity Research Group under the auspices of the Global Diversities and Inequalities Research Centre and has written broadly about Russian President Vladimi Putin's use of homophobia and transphobia as a political weapon, as well as queering the journalism curriculum. She welcomes applications for doctoral research supervision on topics to do with journalism, Russian studies or both.
Publications
- Book Review: 'Trump and Putin in Media Mythologies' to be published in The Slavic Review, 2026
- Queering the Journalism Curriculum’ book chapter, to be published by Emerald Press in 2026 as part of a volume of interdisciplinary papers on queering teaching practices.
- Kremlin Media Wars: Censorship and Control Since the Invasion of Ukraine (London, Routledge, 2025). Co-editor: Aleksandra Raspopina
- Ensuring the Anonymity and Safety of Marginalised Trans Russians in Qualitative Research' book chapter, to be published in 2026 by Sage as part of a book about inclusive research methodologies.
- 'Putin is not a loyal leader', published in the British Journalism Review, December 2025
- 'Dictators and democracy: reflective journalistic practice in covering post-Soviet Russia.' Doctoral thesis, London Metropolitan University. June 2025
- 'Queering the Curriculum’, published in the SEDA blog, November 2024
- 'Singling out the women’, published in British Journalism Review, December 2023
- Book Review: ‘Assignment Moscow: Reporting on Russia from Lenin to Putin’ published in Applied Journalism and Media Studies, September 2023
- ‘Where Russians go for the news’, published in British Journalism Review, December 2022
- ‘Putin cracks down on the media’, published in British Journalism Review, September 2022
- ‘What can we know about Russia?’, published in British Journalism Review, June 2022
- ‘Opening doors with the London Met Journalism Diversity Network’, Diversity in Journalism Whitepaper, April 2020
- ‘By the pricking of my thumbs’, about haunted ghost stories in the British press, British Journalism Review, February 2020
- ‘Selling Sex to the Russians’, about Russia’s first glossy magazine, British Journalism Review, December 2019
- Anger Management: The Essential Guide (London, Need2Know Press, 2010)
Grants, funding and awards
Wendy was most recently part of a recent Oral History project with Arsenal's gaygooners, a multi-disciplinary funded initiative created by academics from several schools that highlights the lived experiences of 20 diverse LGBTQ+ fans - all members of the “UK’s first and the world’s biggest LGBT+ football fan club". She was also part of a winning bid to create a community supermarket at London Met. She received more than £10,000 from Drapers to take more than 40 Fashion Marketing and Journalism students to Paris Fashion Week, and received research funding to carry out a study in Moscow (pre-invasion) on censorship in women's magazines.
Professional Activities
Wendy has been on the annual judging panel for the British Society of Magazine Editors, leads up the London Met Journalism Diversity Network, and is on the Editorial Board of the British Journalism Review. She was the Vice Chair of Governors for a large secondary school from 2016 - 2023, and is a Team Leader and interpreter for an asylum seeker drop-in.
