Behind the Headlines

It's your choice

When we make The Guardian Foundation available to you online, we use cookies and similar technologies to help us to do this.

Some are necessary to help our website work properly and can't be switched off, and some are optional but support The Guardian Foundation and your experience in other ways.

You can find out more in our privacy policy and cookie policy, and manage the choices available to you at any time by going to Manage Cookies at the bottom of any page.

Are you happy to accept cookies?

To manage your cookie choices now, including how to opt out where our partners rely on legitimate interests to use your information, click on Manage my cookies.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of our education programmes, Ayshah Tull, award-winning journalist and presenter at Channel 4 news, chatted to us about her career and how her visit to our Education Centre inspired her to pursue journalism.

We’ve also revisited Ayshah’s 2017 interview by Scott Trust Bursary recipient Grace Holliday…

One of Ayshah Tull’s earliest memories is learning a play for an English class – all of it. Later, her teacher watched as she mouthed along with her classmates.

“Every single word. Looking back, my habit of narrating and miming was really helpful. I’m just really good at talking!”

Tull is one of the Education Centre’s biggest success stories, for it was not that love of language that inspired her career but a school trip.

“I went with my media class to the Education Centre when I was 15. The first thing the organisers said to us was: ‘You’ve got the task of making a front page.’ We went about looking through [news] wires and figuring out our audience. I thought ‘people get paid to find stories and tell their audiences about all these different things? This is incredible.'"

London-born Tull, who attended Ellen Wilkinson School for Girls in Acton, tells her story with as much enthusiasm as she shows on screen. Now 30, she still has that front page. “It was called The Dawn – very sophisticated!”

“The seed wasn’t planted until I went to the [Guardian] newsroom that day; in that moment I realised I wanted to do journalism. It sparked everything,” she says.

At 25, she won a place on the coveted BBC Production Journalism Trainee scheme, before being called to a Newsround screen test. “I stepped into the studio and immediately felt totally at home,” she remembers.
Tull has embraced her minority-ethnic background and advises aspiring journalists to do the same.

The seed wasn’t planted until I went to the [Guardian] newsroom that day; in that moment I realised I wanted to do journalism. It sparked everything.

“In journalism you don’t want a room of the same people. You want different ideas. That has to come from you and your experience. You should never be embarrassed about where you come from and what makes you unique.”

For young people aspiring to work in the media, she advises trainee and mentoring schemes. “I got into the industry via a brilliant trainee scheme. People don’t apply because they think it’s never going to happen for them but you just don’t know.”

Tull has had several high-profile mentors, with the latest being the BBC’s head of diversity, Tunde Ogungbesan. “I dream big, and he helped me start to figure out how I was going to get there.”

The big dream is to become the BBC’s Washington correspondent. It’s an aspiration that ties in with her ideal mentor, Michelle Obama. “She is the epitome of class and grace and also really huggy, which I love! She did the role of first lady in such an amazing way and I’d learn so much from her. I already have done."

Her advice for older students starting to make their way in the media? “Be nice to everyone, and don’t be quiet on work experience: speak up. It can be easy to get overwhelmed, but you’re doing yourself a big disservice if you don’t make the most of an opportunity to do a job that you supposedly love."

In journalism you don’t want a room of the same people. You want different ideas. That has to come from you and your experience. You should never be embarrassed about where you come from and what makes you unique.

Behind the Headlines

In conversation with Ayshah Tull