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Meet the
Sally Hayden With a primary focus on migration, conflict, and humanitarian crises, Sally Hayden is an awardwinning freelance journalist who has had stories and photojournalism republished on six continents. Currently working as the Africa correspondent for The Irish Times, Hayden’s new book, My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World’s Deadliest Migration Route was published in March 2022.
How did you get into journalism? I studied law and international politics, but did a few internships during university, in the BBC and the Santa Barbara Independent, and I wrote for the university newspapers. In 2013, I won the Simon Cumbers student award, which pays for student journalists to travel to a developing country to report (I went to Malawi) and assigns you a mentor (I got Paddy Smyth at The Irish Times). Since then, I’ve been working for The Irish Times as well as a range of other places
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including VICE, The Guardian, the Thomson Reuters Foundation, The Washington Post, the Financial Times, CNN, BBC, TIME, and the New York Times. My first staff job was at VICE News in London, right when it was being set up, which was very interesting.
How do you think the profession is evolving? Rates are going down and the industry is largely reliant on the contribution of young freelancers who often work alone, without much support or oversight. But
