Janice Turner

Early life

She was born in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. She went to Ridgewood School in the north of Doncaster. She attended the University of Sussex, where she spent a year as an elected Student Union Officer and edited the Unionews magazine. She should not be confused with Janice Turner who was chair of the Young Liberals from 1983-1985 who is also a journalist and who is the journal editor and diversity officer of the trade union BECTU.

Career

Before her present post, she was a magazine editor for several women's titles, launching That's Life and Real. She left to write occasional columns for The Guardian and wrote a column about magazines for the UK's Press Gazette.

Turner won Interviewer of the Year in the 2014 British Press Awards. She was shortlisted for best columnist in 2005, 2007, and 2008 and 2016 (highly commended) and best interviewer in 2006.

In 2016, she won the award "A Woman's Voice" in the Editorial Intelligence awards which she declined with the following statement: "'Man is defined as a human being and a woman as a female.' Simone de Beauvoir wrote those words in 1949. And in journalism, they are still true.

"Marina, Rosamund, Mary and I have written about elections, war, Brexit, celebrity, poverty, refugees,sport... But whatever women columnists write, and however well we write it, our words are heard only in a minor key. A woman's voice. I would be letting down the many talented female human beings on British newspapers if I accepted this award."

Personal life

She married Ben Preston, executive editor of the Sunday Times, a former editor of the Radio Times, and a former deputy editor of The Times, and the son of Peter Preston, in 1995. The couple have two sons. She lives in Camberwell, South London.