Award-winning journalist Jane Corbin has reported from the world’s major conflict zones for three decades. She has made films for World in Action, Channel 4 News and BBC Panorama, where she continues to make investigative programmes about international and domestic issues. We talk to Jane about her amazing career and the key lessons she’s learned along the way.

‘My father worked for the Foreign Office,’ reveals Jane. ‘As a child, he took me on trips when we were living in Yemen. I remember seeing the camels and the desert. That’s where my fascination with the Middle East started.’

While it was trips with her dad that sparked a career-defining passion for Jane, it was her experiences of school that prompted her to apply to King’s.

She explains: ‘I studied for my O and A Levels at a boarding school in the depths of the Devon countryside. The idea of living, studying and working in bustling London was always alluring.

‘When I arrived at King’s to study English Literature in 1972, it was exciting. I still get that feeling when I walk along The Strand five decades later. King’s is a special place in a special location.’

A career starter for 10 on University Challenge

Jane says she was always aiming for a career in reporting or documentary-making.

‘I started applying for jobs before I took my finals,’ she recalls. ‘I bought copies of the TV listings magazines, Radio Times and TV Times. I looked up the names of the producers of shows I wanted to work on. I wrote to them, saying “I’d like to come and see you. Could I have an interview?”

‘Most of them didn’t reply. But a man called Douglas Terry, who was the producer of various shows at Granada TV [now ITV Granada], did. There wasn’t a job for me, but there was room in the office for somebody to be an assistant. Because of this, I landed my first job as a question writer on University Challenge.’

A new challenge on Channel 4

While at Granada, Jane got the chance to work for the lauded current affairs series, World in Action.

‘I did Living Dangerously, a World in Action film on the 1976 explosion at a chemical factory in Seveso, Italy,’ she explains. ‘I worked on documentaries at Thames TV and on This Week, too.’

In 1982, a new TV channel was also about to be launched.

She continues: ‘I was asked to join Channel 4 News. It was exciting to be part of a new team. I was a general reporter, but I started doing a lot of foreign reporting. I was one of the last journalists to interview Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi before she was killed in 1984. I also covered the 1984 US Presidential Election.

‘In 1986, I was in the newsroom when we received reports that the Challenger Space Shuttle had blown up. I had to gather footage, establish what facts were available and go on live TV to talk about it with only minutes to prepare.

‘Appearing on live television news puts you under immense pressure – more than the usual journalistic deadlines. Learning to come with this and not show your nerves is one of the most important lessons I have learned.’

Joining Panorama

In 1988, Jane joined the BBC’s flagship documentary series, Panorama.

‘I wanted to do a specific programme and Panorama was going to let me do it,’ says Jane. ‘The Pol Pot regime of the 1970s was long over. But Cambodia was still under the strict rule of the Communist Party and it was closed to all foreign media. I found a way to get access and report on it.’

Jane’s film, In the Shadow of the Killing Fields, prised open the reality of genocide and mass graves, exploring the terrible events that the country and its people had gone through.

Jane has remained at Panorama to this day, where she’s recognised as an expert on Middle East affairs. ‘I’m proud of the work I’ve done examining the growth of Islamic extremism,’ states Jane. ‘I identified the threat of Osama bin Laden three years before the 9/11 attacks on New York. I made Death to America, my first film about him, in 1998 after Al-Qaeda attacked US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

‘In 2002, I followed this up and went to Afghanistan to make a film called The Hunt for Bin Laden.

‘I’ve also followed the story of Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza and the West Bank closely since the 1990s. In 2024, I made the film October 7^th: One Year On. This followed two families in Israel and two in Gaza whose lives were changed for ever by the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.’