After starting his career in Manchester working on local newspapers, John moved to London to join Independent Radio News (IRN), first as a reporter and then news editor. He worked in BBC local and national radio newsrooms before moving to television - first with breakfast station TV-am, then Sky News and finally BBC News, working at senior producer level on bulletins and some of the station's major news feature programmes. He has also been a news writer at the multi-lingual news channel Euronews in Lyons, France.