Gort’s foreign correspondent swaps life in south Galway for perils of the deep south!

Sex trafficking, gangland shootings and murder – deep South America is a far cry from South Galway.

RTÉ’s Charlie Bird found that being a small fish in a big pond in the media world of the US was tough going but Gort reporter James Mahon has found it a thrill a minute since joining a local television news network in the deep south of America in January.

The 22-year-old former Gort Community School pupil and NUI Galway graduate has been reporting on all sorts of debauchery since arriving with WDEF News 12, a CBS News affiliate channel based in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

He says he’s covered all sorts of events, from tornados, black gangland crime, sex trafficking and murder, or homicide as they say in the States, in his short time working as a reporter in the ‘Bible-belt’.

“The first few weeks, there was a lot of gangland crime, which I wasn’t used to,” he laughs.

“It was black on black gangland . . . in a strange way they opened up to an outsider. They (black gangland criminals) see themselves as outsiders and were more willing to speak to an outsider. I look white and middle class but because I was Irish I was an outsider and they opened up . . . I’m trying to ask them about a shooting and they were asking about leprechauns, and lucky charms and Harry Potter,” he recalls.

Producers at WDEF News 12 decided that James had a quirky approach to reports, and that it would be novel and interesting for him to shoot a series about everyday events and activities in Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia. The result is Through Irish Eyes, three episodes of which are available on WDEF News 12’S YouTube channel, and a fourth episode is airing next week.

The idea is that viewers email in and suggest things James should do – already he has taken part in line-dancing, was MC at the National Corn Bread Championships, a traditional Creole cooking competition he describes as “ICA on speed”, and a strange take on how St Patrick’s Day is celebrated in the not-so-Irish Southern states, where the emphasis is “on drinking and not really on Irish culture or heritage”.

He will be skeet shooting next week, which is similar to clay pigeon shooting and he’s looking forward to suggestions from viewers over the Summer, including playing college American Football and baseball; another possible topic includes the ‘drive-through culture in the US.

James, whose parents Oliver and Peggy and sister Mary still leave near Kilbeacanty after graduating from NUIG, studied journalism in Sheffield and then took the advice of Emmy award winning news anchor CNN’s Jim Clancy, and applied to hundreds of stations in the US.