There’s something rather intimidating about being ‘in conversation’ with someone who’s spent much of their career interviewing the great and the good alike. Jane Mulkerrins, now associate editor at the Times, profiled names like George Clooney and Gwyneth Paltrow during her ten years as a freelance feature writer in New York. When she appears on my screen via Zoom, one of the first things she says is how odd it is to now be the interviewee. “This is a very weird situation for me.”

It’s also a return to her past. Like all the best journalists, Mulkerrins is an alumnus of both Cambridge and Varsity, before doing a diploma at City University. I ask her about the experience of breaking into the notoriously competitive world of journalism. “It is really competitive” she says. “I was quite strategic about what I did.” While on work experience at the Sunday Times, Mulkerrins found that “I was the only woman there under 40, so they could use me for certain stories. And then I just refused to leave.”

I suggest that this now sounds like quite an informal way to get a job, and Mulkerrins agrees. “It’s definitely changed since then. The way you used to get jobs in journalism is that you would just email someone and go and have a pint with them, and if they liked you, they’d make space. Now it all has to be viewed by HR and things are advertised.” Isn’t there something attractive about the old ad-hoc methods of employment? Maybe, but Mulkerrins thinks the change has been a good one. “The pipeline has to be a lot broader; it has to be more diverse. You can’t just have the same people emailing editors and getting the jobs.”

“There wasn’t much recognition of mental health issues, we would just drink through it”

It’s not just employment practise that has changed – Mulkerrins thinks this less regulated atmosphere characterised her time at Cambridge as well. She describes formal hall at the time as “raucous” and “pretty disgusting.” “We would have boat races [the drinking game] and pennying, which I know is all banned now.” “It was fun, but it wasn’t healthy. There wasn’t much recognition of mental health issues, we would just drink through it. It’s much healthier now.” (The reader may make up their own mind as to whether that’s true or not.)

Mulkerrins initially worked as a reporter in the aftermath of 9/11 and of course “there were lot of stories relating to that.” She interviewed Pakistani families in London whose sons had gone home to Pakistan, and she travelled to Istanbul on a bus full of people on their way to Iraq to be “human shields.” “It was quite hairy at points, but I’m glad that I did it. I think even for a feature writer those news skills are really important.”

But Mulkerrins has always preferred feature writing. “I never cared enough about getting a scoop. I always wanted to make it read beautifully.” She moved to New York in 2010 (“I wanted to wait out the recession – that didn’t happen!”) and worked as a freelance writer. “There were loads of stories. My patch was America.” Mulkerrins interviewed celebrities and wrote stories about topics as far-flung as a family that adopted a “feral child” and the mothers of school shooters. She was also present to chronical the fallout of Brexit, Trump’s first election, and the beginning of the #MeToo movement. Mulkerrins remarks, “2016 was terrible for the world, but it was a great year for news.” Less good was the pandemic. “As a freelancer with no financial security, that was really hard. There are only so many features you can write about ‘my lockdown in Brooklyn.’”

“2016 was terrible for the world, but it was a great year for news”

As the interview draws to a close, I ask about the future of the industry. Talk of the ‘crisis in journalism’ is ubiquitous, but is there really a crisis or is this just doomsaying? “Journalism has been in crisis since I joined,” Mulkerrins answers. “In 2001, people were predicting the end of journalism. The decline of print obviously has happened. But I think news as a business has just changed shape. There’s more content and more demand for it than there over was. So I’m not depressed or pessimistic about the future of news.”

What about the impact of AI? “There are some aspects of news that could be done by AI. But I think things like analysis, investigations, getting an emotional interview, that can’t ever be done by anything but a human. So that’s cheering. But it’s going to look different, as is every industry.”

We end with a reflection on the cost and rewards of journalism as a career. “If I was 21 again,” Mulkerrins muses, “is it an industry I would want to go in to? I hope so! It’s such an interesting way to live your life. A lot of my friends who went into law or corporate environments have bigger houses and go on better holidays then I do. But then I’ve got Stormy Daniels on speed dial.” And when measuring personal success, that has to count for something.

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