Janet Street-Porter
|
|
Janet Street-Porter (born December 27, 1946) is an outspoken media personality in the United Kingdom. She has been a journalist, presenter, producer and currently works as editor-at-large of the Independent newspapers.
She was born Janet Bull in southern London, the outcome of a doubly adulterous affair, the daughter of an electrician and a Welsh mother. Growing up in Fulham and Perivale, her relations with her parents were extremely poor. She studied at Lady Margaret School in Parson's Green from 1958-64 and then spent two years at the Architectural Association. She dropped out and immediately moved into media work, after a brief stint at a girls magazine she joined the Daily Mail in 1969 She moved to the Evening Standard in 1971 as fashion editor, and she also did some work for LBC in the 1970s.
She broke into television with LWT in 1975, working as a reporter on a series of, often youth-orientated, programmes. She advanced into production work especially after joining Channel 4 in 1986. She was editor of the genre-forging Network 7 from 1987, writing its five rules; she won a Bafta in 1988. In 1988 she was enticed to BBC 2 by Alan Yentob to become Head of Youth and Entertainment Features and she directed the wildly varying output of the twice-weekly DEF II and also commissioned Rapido, Red Dwarf and Rough Guide. Finding her advancement halted she left the BBC for Mirror Group Newspapers in 1994 and was MD with Kelvin MacKenzie in the disaster of the L!VE TV channel in 1995, leaving after four months. In 1996 she set-up an independent production company.
In 1999 she was the surprise appointment as editor of the Independent on Sunday. Challenging her reputation for excessive innovation she was solid and steady in the two years she held the position. In 2002 she moved to a created role as editor-at-large and undertook other media work.
She has had four marriages - Tim Street-Porter (photographer), Tony Elliot (Time Out), Frank Cvitanovich (film-maker) and finally a 14-month union with David Sorkin. She has also had a number of high profile 'flings', often overlapping the ends of her marriages.
A heavily autobiographical novel about her childhood, Baggage, was published in 2004.
She was president of the Ramblers' Association from 1994 to 1996 and has also been vice-president.
Most recently, Janet took part in the series four of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! on ITV in the UK. Finishing fourth, she was the last female to be voted off, with comedian Joe Pasquale eventually being crowned King of the Jungle.