Jessica Askin

Current job
Producer, Seven News, Brisbane.

Degree
Double degree in Journalism and Business (major in public relations). Graduated 2005.

First job
Producer/presenter with the ABC Broadband unit in Brisbane. We wrote, presented, edited the video and published news, sport, business and weather updates to the web, mobile clients and ABC 2.

The story so far
I worked with the ABC Broadband team for a few years until a breast cancer scare at the ABC in Toowong sent us up to Channel Ten’s basement at Mt Coot-tha and then eventually to ABC HQ in Sydney.

Our unit and work load expanded rapidly once we arrived in Sydney and a few years later we became ABC News24. I was a senior show producer there and also did some presenting work. Whilst in Sydney I also did some reporting and producing work for the 7pm New South Wales bulletin.

I left the ABC at the end of 2010 and moved to London. I picked up some freelance producing work at CNN International, Al Jazeera English and ITN. About six months later, I was offered a writer/producer role at CNN. I worked on an hour-long news show called World1 that was broadcast internationally. It was certainly a change from the ABC!

About two years later CNN decided to launch a half hour news show from Hong Kong. I was asked to go to Hong Kong for a month and launch the show. It was an incredibly exciting month and definitely a career highlight. CNN asked me to move to Hong Kong and produce the show full time. I moved a few months later and took over producing CNN News Center. It was a really newsy and fast-paced show that was a lot of fun to produce.

The pace of living in Hong Kong and working for a network like CNN does wear you out though. After a bit over a year in Hong Kong I decided it was time to grow up and live a bit of a quieter life. So, I’ve just moved back to Brisbane where I’ve been working as a producer for Seven News since August 2014. It’s a great newsroom, full of energized and enthusiastic people. I must admit it did take a while to adjust to doing local news again but I absolutely love it!