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Ros Coward

Ros Coward is professor emerita of journalism at Roehampton University, and the author of Speaking Personally: The rise of subjective and confessional journalism

October 2024

  • Dom Mckenzie The Observer Comment EV cars web version

    Four years after buying an electric car, why am I still forced to play hunt-the-charger?

    Ros Coward
    I assumed it would get easier to run an EV, but without a decent infrastructure it’s getting harder and harder

February 2024

  • A Yorkshire terrier. The numbers of dogs in the UK has almost doubled since 2011.

    How about charging dog owners £100 for a licence to cover the costs of poo?

    Ros Coward
    The country’s 13 million dogs create a lot of mess that’s hard to dispose of, dangerous and harmful to the environment

July 2022

  • garden with artificial grass as a lawn and a red brick perimeter wall.

    Why fake grass is far from green in ways you might not guess

    Artificial lawns are higher maintenance than the adverts will have you believe … and they’ll burn your feet in this heatwave

January 2022

  • Ros Coward and her partner John.

    Streets ahead? What I’ve learned from my year with an electric car

    Record sales and now news of a battery that lasts hundreds of miles. It’s getting better, but going green was tough, admits a reluctant pioneer

July 2021

  • Environmental activist Marcus Carambola in York Gardens, Wandsworth, south-west London, where Taylor Wimpey wanted to fell the the 100-year-old black poplar.

    Nimbys are not selfish. We’re just trying to stop the destruction of nature

    Ros Coward
    Developers use this laden word when they want to obliterate wildlife and its habitats, to demonise anyone who objects, says Ros Coward, trustee of the Rainforest Foundation UK

May 2021

  • Springwatch presenter Chris Packham with his stepdaughter Megan McCubbin on the 2020 series.

    Springwatch gives succour to our souls, but should it do more?

    Ros Coward
    The BBC nature programme is good at engaging with the public but it fails to address the threat of human development, says journalism professor Ros Coward

April 2021

  • Activist Marcus Carambola in York Gardens, south London, February 2021.

    Across the UK, environmental protest is surging. So why don't we hear about it?

    Ros Coward
    There are hundreds of local uprisings against developers – and it’s starting to become a national issue, says journalism professor Ros Coward

February 2021

  • Woodland cleared for the HS2 route outside Wendover, February 2021

    The government's relentless push for development is destroying rural England

    Ros Coward
    Local action alone can’t fix the Tories’ broken planning system. We need a national fightback, says Ros Coward of Roehampton University

January 2021

  • Schoolchildren in Northwich, England, on the last day before the first lockdown in March 2020.

    Covid has brought schoolchildren terrible stress – but they've also seen society at its best

    Ros Coward
    This generation has witnessed the often-invisible glue that holds us together, says professor of journalism Ros Coward

August 2020

  • A mouse in the house need not necessitate a call to pest control.

    Toads, spiders, daddy long legs, even mice: let them all share our homes

    Ros Coward
    Species decline is being reversed in UK forests, highlands and rivers. But rewilding should start in our own houses and gardens

May 2020

  • Ros Coward, centre, with her parents on Wimbledon Common in the 1950s.

    My family's history reveals the terrible toll a pandemic takes on mental health

    Ros Coward

October 2019

  • Halloween witch.

    From the Guardian archive
    Myths and magic of the witch – archive, 1994

    31 October 1994 Is the witch the practitioner of black arts, benevolent earth mother, or merely the outsider in her community?

February 2019

  • Spanish refugees at Le Perthus, France, in 1939.

    Franco refugees still haunted by the past: ‘We were cold, hungry and scared’

    Half a million people fled Spain in 1939, only to be interned for years in harsh French camps. Survivors now tell of the misery of the Retirada, 80 years ago

November 2018

  • An RSPCA shop.

    Shortcuts
    Charity shops are what conscious consumers need – we must defend them

    With shoe repair shops booming, people clearly want a chance to reuse and recycle older goods. It’s time to get creative

April 2018

  • Ant McPartlin makes a statement after his drink-driving case.

    Ant McPartlin is a celebrity, but do we forget he’s a human being?

    Ros Coward
    Ant’s tortured appearance after his drink-drive case reminds us of fame’s dark side – and our appetite for it, says the journalism professor Ros Coward

March 2018

  • Monster Munch Crisp Packet

    Telling litterers to change is a waste of time. Here’s another solution

    Ros Coward
    Instead of trying to change people’s behaviour, the problem needs to be tackled at source – that means a zero-waste society, writes litter-picker Ros Coward

May 2017

  • A carer tends to a  woman with multiple sclerosis

    Theresa May’s plan for carers only works for those who can afford it

    Ros Coward
    I know how hard it is to be a full-time carer while holding down a full-time job. We need real state help – not a fake reform like this one

April 2017

  • Tessa Adams published widely on psychoanalysis and contemporary art

    Other lives
    Tessa Adams obituary

    Other lives: Influential figure in the development of art psychotherapy in the UK

March 2017

  • Theresa May

    Theresa May takes empty rhetoric to a new level

    Ros Coward
    The prime minister’s motivational generalities over Brexit and beyond may be about to tip over into something darker – authoritarian delusions

February 2017

  • A bed in a lift in Queen Elizabeth hospital, Birmingham

    When my mum became a ‘bed blocker’, I saw the crisis in care for older people

    Ros Coward
    Anyone with an elderly relative in need of medicalised social care should prepare to deal with a shockingly underfunded and uncompassionate system
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