Jayne Secker - Journalist and Presenter of The Today Show, Sky News

I met Jayne on a cruise, which makes us both laugh as we had never been on a cruise before but we were invited on the wonderful Celebrity Cruises newest ship, Celebrity Beyond and it was fantastic!

I was interested to hear about how Jayne got into journalism and how her career had developed over the years. Jayne said she always loved telling stories and was interested in English at school. Even though she didn’t get into her first choice university, she headed to Sirling University to do Film and Media Studies. Here she got involved in local newspaper writing and also working at the university newspaper and radio station. Jayne’s mother worked in the industry so had tried to deter her from working in it too because of the sexism she had encountered over the years. I think this made Jayne more insistent on following this path.

After university Jayne went on to specialise so did another course to convert into her specialism. She was lucky enough to get a BBC training contract which was very sought after. She had 3 months training and the 9 months on the job, after this she had the option of either being offered a job or being let go based on your performance over the last year.

Jayne started out in radio and then moved into TV, she researched her own stories and then presented them, on the podcast she talks about how they used to edit in the 1980s and 1990s by manually cutting tape and sticking it back together. Research was done in person on the ground, speaking to local sources such as police stations and hospitals for updates on local incidents. Now obviously we have mobile phones and social media. This presents another issue though due to people faking news with clever imagery. There is special team at Sky tasked with sifting through sources information and making sure it is real.

From Jayne’s TV debut, she soon went into war zone reporting which she loved. Jayne was working her way up the ladder and had applied to be the Middle East correspondent, however, having been in the war zones had started to take it’s toll on her and she had developed PTSD. This was a hard realisation she had but made her reassess her priorities and career. In her 20s she had taken more risks but now it was time to be based in the UK and she got married and decided to start a family.

Having children and working in the media was tough to juggle. At this time, Jayne couldn’t get a regular slot so she couldn’t organise regular childcare. She hired a nanny but this took all of her salary. Sound familiar? This commitment did pay off after 5 years (?!) as she got a regular slot and her children went to school.

Jayne said that the best part of her job is the unpredictability and a recent highlight was an interview she did with Rishi Sunk when he was the chancellor and she asked him about his wife’s business relationships with Russia. The worst part of her job is the backlash she can receive from social media, if people don’t like something she says then Twitter can blow up and she can become a target of hatred. It is difficult as social media is part of her job to use it for research and promotion of her and her show but it can also have such a depressing side to it also. Unfortunately this has meant that Jayne no longer celebrates the wins as she knows that the next day, something negative may also happen.

Overall, she loves her job and has worked hard in her career and at the heart of it is that she still gets to tell stories and quench her thirst for knowledge and sharing it with us.

If you are interested in a career in journalism, Jayne recommends working for your local news outlet to get experience. Sky News are currently offering work experience too! Have a look here!