My Career Ladder
How did they do it? We have the answers! Each month we take a look at different ways into the industry by focussing on a member who has taken an interesting path to their current job.
From trainee reporter on Essex Radio to respected academic, Sarah Onions does not regret the time she spent chasing fire engines in the countryside round Southend. Her innate news sense informs all she passes on to her students, who as well as those at schools and colleges in and around London have included inmates at a young offenders' institute.
"Valuable advice for a journalist, my father told me to go out and get mud on my boots. Family legend has it that he said the same thing once to Jon Snow."
As a pioneering Peace Studies graduate from Bradford University Sarah Onions got her first job as a trainee reporter on Essex Radio, working alongside Helen Rollason, Yvonne Hall (now BBC South East) and Dianne Stradling (now Anglia News). After helping gain a 52 per cent audience share she moved to Radio Trent, where she covered the murder of Diane Jones in Coggeshall, filing many of her reports to IRN.
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