Jackie Weaver aka Britney Spears will be speaking to Cardiff Uni MA Journalism students

Jackie Weaver, who recently went viral after the video of a Handforth Parish Council Meeting hit the internet, will be talking to Cardiff University students over Zoom.

The talk will be for students doing a Public Administration module, which is offered to those doing MA Broadcast Journalism, MA News Journalism, and MA Magazine Journalism. The seminar will be held on Monday 15th February.

The talk will focus on what happened during the meeting, how she was involved in it and how it all went wrong. It will also focus on the press coverage on local government, the necessity of coverage, and the implications the viral video may have.

Michael Hill, who runs the MA and NCTJ News Journalism course at JOMEC, told The Cardiff Tab: “My colleague, Cathy Duncan, had shared the video of the meeting in our group chat on Thursday night and I was hooked, then I heard an item about it on the Today programme.

“On Friday I was talking about the video with friends and students and even had emails from previous students asking me about what was going on and the legalities of what the meeting hinged on, so I thought I’d contact Jackie to see if she fancied joining us for our next Public Administration lecture to explain it in person – or at least on Zoom.”

He continued: “I was reading a Sunday Times piece about her when she messaged me back and said she’d love to join us for our next lecture so we set it up over the weekend. I told the students today and they were as thrilled as I was.”

Michael also added that his students will have the opportunity to ask Jackie what it is like being at the centre of a story, what her reaction to the viral video was, and all that came with it: the memes, the merchandise, etc.

The meeting was held in December, but went viral this month after being shared on Twitter. Jackie in particular gained attention by kicking out the chairman from the meeting after being told she “had no authority, no authority at all.”

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