My Interesting Job: Beth Rigby

I went to a state grammar school. Recently, they wheeled me out for prize giving and there were all these kids there who were thinking I must have been really successful at school. But I wasn’t – I didn't do very well in my GCSEs; I got bang average grades. Then I got better. Life isn’t all about a linear line of progression – sometimes you take a sideward turn and realise it's about resilience and learning how to pick yourself up.

Back then, journalism wasn’t something I thought about as a career. I took politics at A Level and found I was really interested in the subject. That was it really – my passion grew from there, I did well in my exams and went to Cambridge to study social and political science. I tried a bit of student journalism and did end up starting up my own magazine in college, but I really wasn’t sure what I’d do after university. I took a year out, taught English as a foreign language in Portugal and then did some work experience at the Financial Times when I came back. They kept me on and gave me a traineeship on the website, which at the time was really in its infancy. Suddenly, I had a toehold in journalism and just didn't look back.

Luck definitely played a part. But I also benefited because when I did the work experience, we were reporting on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the annual meetings, and I'd done development papers as part of my degree, so I knew a bit about the subject matter – enough to impress this brilliant woman called Joanna Rollo, who essentially gave me my break. I became a financial journalist and only moved into politics in about 2010. It took me quite a long time to get to the spot I really wanted to, but I think a lot of financial journalists harbour political ambitions. The two are quite closely aligned. For example, I always look forward to the Budget – even though most reporters find it quite intimidating but because I worked at the FT, it feels like second nature.

By 2015, I’d done a five-year stint on the politics desk. Following the election, Lionel Barber – the then-editor of the FT – asked me to come back to do another business editor job. However, I didn’t want to do it, so it started to feel like the end of the road for me. Instead, I moved to The Times to be the media editor. It was frightening because I’d always worked at the FT and so I thought, ‘What if I'm not very good?’ I wondered if I’d been successful at the FT because of longevity rather than because I was a good journalist. It felt a bit like going through a professional divorce – after all, I’d been there 18 years.

The good news was that I loved The Times. It was during John Witherow's tenure as editor, and it was dynamic. It was a bit more of a hard-edged newsroom compared to the FT, which by comparison, is very cerebral. But I really thrived at The Times. I’d almost go as far as to say I felt more at home there.

Television had entered my mind about three or four years after being in the lobby – so we’re talking somewhere around 2013 or 2014. I was going to a lot of political events and noticed it was broadcast journalists who were the ones with access, the ones asking the questions, the ones making the news if you like. I used to watch Adam Boulton from Sky, Nick Robinson from the BBC, Laura Kuenssberg from the BBC, or Tom Bradby from ITV. It seemed terrifying but also intriguing. I wondered what it would be like to be the person actually asking the questions that are generating the news around that particular event.

Sky approached me just after I joined The Times. At the time, there was an acceptance among broadcasters that they needed to increase the representation of women and diversity on television. But I said no because I’d only just accepted my new job. They came back again a few months later, when I was about to turn 40, and I thought, ‘Beth, you either do it now or you don't do it.’ So, I did it. It was strange – I’d been at the FT from the age of 21 to 39, and then suddenly in the space of a year, I’d moved to another newspaper, and then into broadcasting to start what felt like a new career.

One of the main differences between print and broadcast is that your storytelling is entirely different. In both instances, you need to know a lot of information, but a newspaper article is all about the richness and detail. It’s about colour and precision, but with broadcast journalism you need to be able to filter the information down to tell a story very clearly, succinctly and, yes, let it have richness, but ultimately keep it simple. When I was a business journalist, there was a guy called Terry Leahy – a brilliant chief executive at Tesco – and I remember going to press conferences where he would explain quite complicated ideas in a straightforward way. That really is what you're trying to do with broadcasting. It’s not about dumbing it down, just distilling it in a way that's digestible to an audience.

Newspaper journalism is also about being behind the scenes. It’s going for coffees and off-record briefings and trying to weave together information to get a scoop or an exclusive or compile a smart piece of analysis. Television journalism is on camera, on record, and it’s ultimately a performative job. There are lots of stories in my notebook that I would never be able to put on television. Broadcasting is about finding those moments of tension, asking good questions at press conferences and trying to capture the drama of an unfolding political situation in a way that engages the viewer. It’s a very different skillset.

The best thing about being a broadcast journalist is that you have a ringside seat. For every big moment in our national life, you get to bear witness to it, which is such an immense privilege. The night Trump struck Iran, I woke up at 8am the next morning knowing the Prime Minister was going to make a statement and that statement would matter to millions of people. Fortunately, that 12-day war ended but it could have gone a different way. I’m the one getting to go down to Chequers to see the Prime Minister and ask those questions before millions of people hear his answers. You feel like you’re doing something very useful.

Some Prime Ministers can be harder to work with depending on their political predicament. Usually, the harder it gets, the spikier they get, although I have to say Kier Starmer is pretty resilient both on and off camera. He’s also relatable and the most down-to-earth Prime Minister I’ve worked with. He is pretty comfortable chatting with journalists – we both like Arsenal, which helps – but he’s also polite and professional.

The one that was quite difficult was Liz Truss. Although she was only there for a short time, I conducted a difficult interview with her at the party conference shortly before she resigned and just after she had reversed her stance on tax rate cuts. I came out of that conversation feeling frustrated because she didn't answer any of my questions. Then I watched it back and realised it was a difficult interview for her. From then on, she wouldn’t take a question or have a coffee with me. But the way I look at it is that I'm there to do a job: to hold power to account as best I can on behalf of viewers. If that means that a Prime Minister or any cabinet minister takes it personally, there's not really much I can do about that. Boris Johnson, Theresa May, Rishi Sunak – they always dealt with it in a very matter-of-fact way. When you’re having a terrible time politically, it's hard not to let things get you down, but as Prime Minister, you have to surf the wave. I suspect the longer you do the job, the harder it is to remain detached. You are under extreme pressure, dealing with global leaders, with war, with rebellions. It’s the toughest job there is, isn't it?

My working life doesn't really have any routine. I might leave home anywhere from 6am to 9am, depending on my daily commitments. If I'm travelling outside of London, often to press conferences, they generally only get called either the day before or that morning. Put it this way: I always carry around about 2kg of make-up with me and some portable hair straighteners! If I'm not travelling I get into the office early-ish to film. We create a lot of digital video content, so the filming happens in and out all day long. I also record my Electoral Dysfunction podcast on a Thursday – although we film all over the place – and I try to lock in two gym sessions a week. I usually get home anytime between 8pm and midnight. It’s hectic, but it’s brilliant.

When I first joined the lobby, there was only one female political editor. Now there's at least ten of us. It really has changed a lot in 15 years. That said, when I get on a briefing call with Number 10 with all the broadcast political editors, they're still all men, so there is further to go. Women in the public eye definitely get more criticism. It's just a fact of life, so you have to be very resilient. But for everyone who sends me a shitty tweet, another young woman will want a selfie when I’m out and about. It's important to remember the noisy ones are actually a pretty small group.

Sometimes, I think being a woman in this job can give me an edge. Maybe I can ask more personal questions, approach it slightly differently. I definitely don't go into things with a massive ego, which can help. As for presentation, I’m often asked about the pressures of being well turned out all the time, but I find it’s worth it – otherwise, your appearance, if it’s scruffy, becomes a talking point. I dress for the performance because it’s my job. I don’t think about it much beyond that.

Election nights, Prime Ministers resigning, the handover of power – those are the moments that always stay with you. I’ll never forget Theresa May’s voice breaking or Rishi Sunak walking out in the driving rain. Another thing I’ll never forget is when the poll dropped on the 2024 election night. That really was a ‘gasp’ moment. You knew Labour were going to win, but the size of the majority felt like a ‘pinch me’ moment. The first election I remember watching was 1997, when, as students, we all crowded around a tiny telly to watch Tony Blair win a landslide majority. To be on television 24 years later reporting on a similar event was a moment I’ll never forget.

I’ll also never forget the day the Queen died. We were waiting for some sort of announcement, and then we were told Liz Truss was going to speak. I ran to Downing Street, got inside, and we all crouched down as she came out. She sort of looked up, inhaled a breath, and I just remember thinking ‘Don't mess it up’. I knew she had to deliver because the whole nation was watching.

My advice to anyone looking to get into journalism is to do it your way. Don’t compare yourself to other people because it just makes you miserable. There's always going to be someone who’s more this, more that. You have to run your own race. The person you are competing with is you. Every time you approach something, just try to do it better. Learn from where you succeed, learn from where you don't do so well, and work on your own continuous improvement. Back yourself and be your own biggest cheerleader. Also, if you fail to prepare, then prepare to fail. Success comes because you work harder than anyone else. There’s no real secret to it beyond that.

Follow @BETHRIGBYSKY