Sophie Else

Sophie Else is a journalist at The Border Mail working across entertainment and feature coverage with a strong focus on human-centred local stories. Her reporting brings a lived-experience lens to news and culture on the Border, highlighting the people behind crime statistics, council decisions, community initiatives and small business ventures.

Human-centred features and profiles

Else’s distinguishing strength is the way she builds narrative around individual lives, often using their own words as the spine of a story.

In her piece on a “beautiful” soul whose final battle with love is framed through his determination to keep fighting, she centres emotion and relationships rather than medical or procedural detail, turning a personal loss into a portrait of character and connection. The same approach shapes her feature on “15 inspiring Border men,” where she draws out reflections such as “Would the boy I once was look up to the man I am today?” to show how local men measure themselves against their younger selves while serving and uplifting those around them.

She extends this human-first style into lighter entertainment and lifestyle territory through profiles such as teenage sweethearts who turn a passion for fishing into a new business venture. Even in that story, the hook is not just the commercial idea but the relationship and shared hobby that sit behind it, keeping the tone personal rather than purely transactional.

Across these pieces she consistently frames entertainment and community life through the choices, doubts and small triumphs of ordinary people, rather than treating them as generic case studies.

Car crime, scams and public safety

Else also works on crime and public safety stories, where she combines clear explanation with vivid detail. Her coverage of a “dramatic downturn” in car thefts after the arrest of a prolific crook follows the arc from a December spike in vehicle thefts to the impact of a targeted police operation, using specific description – including the offender’s mullet-style haircut – to make the case tangible rather than abstract.

In that piece, she traces how breaking a syndicate changes day‑to‑day risk for drivers on the Border, joining police intelligence with the lived experience of residents.

She brings a similarly practical focus to consumer risk, as in her article on a new trick scammers use to wind back odometers on used cars. Instead of stopping at warning language, she includes concrete steps such as running a Personal Property Securities Register check through the government’s Financial Security Authority, turning a cautionary tale into a short guide on how to avoid being caught out. These stories show her tendency to anchor crime and scam coverage in actionable detail that readers can use, while still situating it in the broader pattern of local offending.

Council decisions, heritage sites and housing pressure

In local government and planning coverage, Else focuses on how bureaucratic decisions land in people’s lives. Her reporting on Beechworth Town Hall’s upgrade and the criticism of the budget process examines a proposed 7.54 per cent rate increase, breaking down how the transfer of an environmental management contribution into general rates shapes household bills and why some councillors and residents feel the change was pushed “under the radar”. By unpacking the numbers and the process together, she shows both the technical and trust dimensions of the debate.

Her story on the deadlock between the owner of the old Mayday Hills asylum site and Heritage Victoria similarly tracks the human implications of planning refusals, charting how three permit applications were knocked back by Indigo Council and what that means for development plans and heritage protection at the site.

In another piece on evictions at a Porepunkah caravan park, she foregrounds criticism that compassion was lacking in how residents were treated, capturing the distress and anger that follow sudden displacement from low‑cost accommodation. Across these articles, she treats council policy, heritage rules and housing decisions as lived realities for tenants, homeowners and business operators, not just as administrative processes.

Local business, industry and creative work

Else’s business and industry pieces carry the same emphasis on accessibility and human impact. Her coverage of supply chain issues and surging operational costs at Border pet food plants looks beyond headline inflation to show how transport constraints and input prices affect local manufacturing, connecting corporate decisions to jobs and regional economic stability.

In profiles like the teenage couple turning a fishing hobby into a venture, she frames entrepreneurship as part of everyday life, illustrating how personal passions can evolve into small businesses.

She has also written on investment properties, such as “easy set‑and‑forget” units sold in South Albury above the $700,000 mark, placing real estate trends in a context that speaks to both investors and residents weighing affordability and returns. Else touches on the role of podcasts as a way for business owners to build their brand and connect with audiences, signalling her interest in how creative formats intersect with commerce and self‑promotion. Taken together, her entertainment and business coverage spotlights the people, risks and opportunities that define local economic and cultural life.