He was bureau chief of their Gold Coast and North Queensland newsrooms in the early 1990s before becoming a reporter with WIN television based in Cairns and Townsville. He has worked as a freelance journalist and sub-editor for IPC Magazines in London and later for Brisbane News magazine where he wrote an architecture column and travel features. Ben is the author of The Von: Stories and Suggestions from Australian Golf’s Little Master about Australian sporting legend Norman von Nida (UQP, 1999) and The Second Father: An Insider’s Story of Cops, Crime and Corruption (UQP, 2009), the memoir of former undercover policeman and Italian migrant Domenico ‘Mick’ Cacciola.