Biography
Sophia Smith Galer is an award-winning journalist and content creator credited for pioneering journalism on TikTok.
Sophia’s push for representation in newsrooms for younger audiences and the stories and platforms that matter to them has won her a series of accolades, including the British Journalism Awards’ Innovation of the Year in 2021, a spot on the Forbes Under 30 List and recognition in British Vogue as one of the 25 most influential women in the UK in 2022.
Her exclusive reporting across health and technology has led to platform changes everywhere from TikTok to the NHS website, and her journalism around sexual and reproductive health has led to the exposure of British anti-abortion funding as well as the UK government’s secret withdrawal of millions of pounds of sex education funding. She was the first journalist to report the misuse of political ads on TikTok during the 2020 US election, which was broadcast in her first television documentary The TikTok Election, and she continues to hold the same platform she goes viral on every week to account in a series of ongoing investigations.
Sophia began her career at the BBC, reporting across the BBC World Service, BBC Radio 4 and BBC World News and building Webby-winning BBC social media channels before joining VICE News as a senior reporter. Her multilingual reporting across Spanish, Arabic and Italian has helped her get to the story first in English-language media several times, including her reporting on a catcalling episode in Madrid that won VICE over 25 million TikTok and Instagram views.
Sophia is the only reporter in the UK to be both HEFAT trained to handle hostile environments and accredited via acet UK to deliver sex education, following the publication of her book Losing It: Dispelling the Sex Myths that Rule Our Lives. It was published by Harper Collins in 2022 to critical acclaim and was a No.1 Amazon bestseller in Sex. She became a Visiting Fellow in 2023 for Brown University’s Information Futures Lab where she has developed resources for combating misinformation and misogyny in British schools that she delivers personally.
She frequently appears as an expert on sexual health reporting, media innovation and TikTok across British news media. She has also judged entries for the Edinburgh Television Awards and the BAFTAs.
For requests regarding reporting, broadcasting, speaking, consulting or partnerships, please email work@sophiasmithgaler.com.