Reaching the top of the media vine

Since graduating from Durham in 1986, Jeremy Vine has gone from being a lowly student to one of the BBC’s leading figureheads. He now hosts such shows as Panorama and The Jeremy Vine Show, two of the best-known programmes in the UK. His reporting style is world-renowned and highly credited; it has taken him from the early days at the Coventry Evening Telegraph, to Africa, to his position now as one of the UK’s key political and current affairs presenters. I caught up with Jeremy to see how his time at Durham University set him on his path to the media spotlight.

Jeremy arrived from Epsom College to Hatfield College in 1982 and found the atmosphere of the college very daunting. At the time Hatfield was all male and had a serious rugby boozing culture. “They [the Hatfield JCR] were campaigning to keep women out of College. Looking back now it was rather sexist”. The rebellious streak of the students led to a disastrous Hatfield Day that brings to mind the furore surrounding 2008’s St Chad’s Day. However, this particular Hatfield Day was so debauched that the holiday was banned after Jeremy’s first year. He recalls the fateful day: “Chicken drumsticks were thrown at the Master’s wife and someone dropped a boiled egg down one of the tubas of the local brass band from a balcony. That was appalling actually.”
While at Durham, Jeremy became highly involved with Palatinate. During his third year (1985-1986) he took the mantle of editor, but explains that it was quite a different paper back in those days. The transformation that he describes from a quiet hub of a few students to a hugely involved paper may seem a little boggling, but Jeremy explores the newspaper’s evolution.

Not many people at the time were thinking about jobs in the media. You won’t believe it, but there was a drive by papers to recruit people and I think there was a lack of people who were into the idea. The Palatinate office was tightly-packed with a very small number of obsessives, like me, but there wasn’t a crowd. We were the university squares. The media boom came later.” Many of the team Jeremy worked with went on to become leading media figures, such as “Jayne Morgan [who] now runs a very successful podcast in South Africa, Adrian Wells who is now the head of Foreign News at Sky News and Judith O’Reilly who was a very successful blogger and is a best-selling author. Tim Burt worked at the Financial Times as their motor industry correspondent.” Their rise to media stardom from Palatinate may seem like a dream come true for all budding student journalists but, as Jeremy points out, our generation of young hacks may not be quite as lucky. “Happy days. We graduated into a boom. With the recession now it is much, much tougher. But at least the economy is not Armagheddon. A year ago it looked like it might be.”

Jeremy was editor as well as being a radio DJ for Metro Radio, where he worked the graveyard shift (2am-5am). These activities counted towards his English degree, as 50% of the degree was vocational. As he didn’t organise the vocational section of his degree until his third year, he struggled to keep up with the workload. As he puts it, “my academic degree suffered” and he graduated with a 2.2 degree. Jeremy obviously misses his time at Durham, calling it “the simple life”. “I didn’t need a diary back then because I had nothing on; now my diary is planned minute by minute. Back when I was at university we didn’t have the technology you do; now you can email, text, call and twitter. I used to just go and knock on a mate’s door and go for a pint.” I asked Jeremy what the best thing was about his time at Durham. “Living within sight of the most beautiful building. You may be lodging with three students who haven’t learnt how to use the shower yet, but it doesn’t matter. You can see the Cathedral when you go out the front door, and that’s what matters.”

After graduating, Jeremy went straight into a journalism course with the Coventry Evening Telegraph, which is still being printed, although times are tougher. Within a year of graduating he had already started working for the BBC and, by 1989, he had become a regular reporter for the Today programme on BBC Radio 4. During his time working for the Today programme, Jeremy found a way of relaxing after his fifteen-hour shifts: by creating two graphic novels. These graphic novels (‘Forget Heaven, Just Kiss Me’ and ‘The Whole World in My Hands’) were set amidst the modern Church of England. They were clearly ways for him to express his religious beliefs. However, he doesn’t look back on them with much relish. “I’m a bit embarrassed about them now. The publisher was crazy enough to print them. They will be no great footnote in my life.”

Jeremy’s religion is a very personal thing to him and it is obvious from his answers that he is careful to not offend anyone. He is an open Anglican but it is very clear that his religious leanings should not affect his reporting. “Presenting must be professional. The key thing is to be real as much as you can but without putting individual views on the table. Once they are out there they can’t be taken back.” He has been quoted on occasion worrying about the extent to which people can discuss faith openly without being pilloried. In a country where political correctness has taken over sense, Jeremy is very firm that he is not attacking the BBC, merely the change in public opinion. The Daily Telegraph reporter George Pitcher printed an article in January of this year calling for Jeremy to become Archbishop. “I couldn’t believe it had been run. I had lunch with George recently and I was too embarrassed to bring it up. I don’t think I would fit the bill though.”

In 1997 his journalism skills took him to warmer climates when he became the BBC’s Africa correspondent, based in Johannesburg but travelling all over Africa. He undertook one of the last BBC interviews with Robert Mugabe and won critical acclaim for a piece about the brutality of the South African police force that led to suspensions of 22 policemen. Jeremy admits that he often longs to be back in those days. “A reporter’s life is fundamentally what journalism is all about. Discovering things. Even presenters often wish they were back on the road, though their connection with the audience is a very special thing. But being in Africa was amazing. Sometimes, people I was interviewing had not seen a microphone before, let alone appeared on the radio.”

His move to a more public role began in 1997 when he joined Jeremy Paxman and Kirsty Wark as a presenter of BBC2’s flagship Newsnight programme. However, his biggest challenge came in 2007, when he took the helm of Panorama, the longest running current affairs documentary series in the world. The job also came with extra pressure as the programme was moved to Mondays at primetime, thereby having to compete with the likes of Coronation Street. They came through the trial of Monday nights successfully and continue to create the incredibly influential documentaries that Panorama remains famous for.

Jeremy’s proudest report is the documentary about the Matthews family. Karen Matthews was the mother who arranged the abduction of her own daughter, Shannon. Panorama had exclusive access to police records and got a great response to their investigation. The show saw a huge rise in viewership, with 5.6 million tuning into the hour long special. However, Jeremy isn’t just pleased with the ratings, but is more impressed by what the show achieved. “It was a discovery of a whole layer of Britain we didn’t know existed, or wanted to.” He also commented on a very recent Panorama (still on iplayer) about racism in a Bristol housing estate and the topic’s power to shock. “It makes you think ‘Bloody hell, is this what’s happening?’”

Talking to Jeremy I was hugely impressed that even though he started his journalism career early he still has such love for the job, and the passion he puts into his work has not diminished. Jeremy’s final statement is very conclusive as to why he still loves reporting and why others would too. “Journalists must have a great sense of mission, but must always question everything around them.”

The Jeremy Vine Show is on weekdays 12 till 2 on BBC Radio 2. Panorama is on Mondays at 8:30pm on BBC1.