"The teacher said, 'Let's go round the room and everyone can tell us what they watched last night,"" Jan Fran told the Shameless podcast, recalling a moment from her school days. While her classmates mentioned popular sitcoms and soap operas, Fran had a very different answer. "The news.' I think the class just went completely silent.
Even my friend, who was sitting next to me, turned and mouthed 'the news? You watched the news?"" Now an accomplished journalist, media commentator and broadcaster, it was this sense of curiosity and engagement with social issues from a young age that set the foundation for Fran to pursue a passion for journalism and storytelling.
"I was also aware of how powerful the media is," Fran tells WellBeing. "How powerful it is in shaping stories, and shaping perceptions of people, and how wrong it can be, especially when you grow up in a community where the media representation of you does not match your lived experience within that community at all.
I was very conscious of these things, and it kind of felt like [journalism] was the direction that I was always going to head." Fran has filmed documentaries around the world and created her own award-winning online opinion and analysis series to help engage young people in current affairs. She's also co-host of the ABC's Question Everything and is known for her work on SBS's The Feed and Channel 10's The Project.
But alongside her journalistic accomplishments, Fran is an advocate for giving a voice to those who feel unheard. She's an ambassador for Plan International, an organisation that aims to advance equality for girls around the world, an ambassador for the Whitlam Institute's What Matters? writing competition to help young people share their opinions on what's important to them, and has used her platform and influence to be an advocate for issues that affect women, girls and minority groups.
The power of media
This story is from the Issue 213 edition of WellBeing.
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This story is from the Issue 213 edition of WellBeing.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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