Twenty Years on the Road with Jane Goldsmith
NBN newsreader Jane Goldsmith has been in front of a camera since she was 12 years old.
Signed with one of Australia's top modelling agencies, she spent her school holidays attending castings and, at the age of 14, scored her first gig as a cover model for a national magazine. But while travelling to Japan for magazine shoots and television commercials may sound glamorous, Goldsmith always knew her future career would be in front of a different kind of camera.
"I did a bit of modelling as a teen in my school holidays... it was a bit of fun, and I enjoyed the travel and experiences," she said.
"But even by Year 10, I knew that journalism was where I wanted to be.
"I grew up in a little place called Bonny Hills near Port Macquarie, and I loved school. I was really into public speaking and debating and drama, writing, languages, all of those things.
"My parents were both high school teachers, and they encouraged my love of writing. I did some work experience with Cleo magazine in Sydney and PRIME local news in Port Macquarie. That was the typical Year 10 work experience.
"Then when I finished school, I went straight into the University of Newcastle's communications degree and loved it, and I just knew that broadcast journalism was the right fit."
While at Uni, Goldsmith juggled her full-time studies with stints as a radio producer on Newcastle radios stations ABC and KOFM, working with well-known Newcastle media personalities Craig Hamilton, David Collins and Tanya Wilks.
By 2000, when she was in her third year of Uni, Goldsmith was back in front of the camera as a casual member of the PRIME news team in Newcastle – and she knew this was where she belonged.
"I had decided at that point that radio was fun, but I was more interested in getting out on the road doing television because you have to be out getting the pictures, and that's what I really loved," she said.
"I started at PRIME, worked there as a casual for probably 12 months, and I was coming up to the end of third-year Uni when PRIME sadly closed down, and everybody was out of a job.
"I had thought at the time this might be where I end up next year when I finish Uni, but it wasn't to be, so I sent off my resumé to Jim Sullivan, who was the news editor at NBN at the time and went in for a day or two of work experience.
Image Top and Above by AJM Photography
"I ended up being lucky enough to get a gig quite quickly in our Central Coast bureau. I was a journo down on the Central Coast for a couple of years doing news and sport and then moved back up to NBN's headquarters in Newcastle and have stayed ever since.
"It did feel lucky that I had a full-time job, but at the same time throughout Uni, I was going off to work at 4am to be a breakfast producer five days a week while my friends were still coming home from the pub.
"I worked hard for it, and whenever I meet any uni students that come in for work experience now, I just hammer home that point that if you want something, you've just got to really strive for it, seize the day, and keep knocking on that door."
Fast forward to 2021, and Goldsmith's hard work and passion for her job are still paying off, with the dedicated journalist getting ready to celebrate 20 years at NBN this October.
After two decades, Goldsmith has become a much-loved familiar face on our screens and now works as a newsreader on the 6pm bulletins every Saturday and Sunday, as well as writing and presenting the weekend weather.
On Mondays each week, Goldsmith heads out on the road as one of NBN's journalists in the field, still rating it as the aspect of the job she loves the most, even after all these years. For the past few years, she has also been doing some casual stints down in the Channel Nine newsroom in Sydney and in recent months has taken on a weekly role on a Thursday working as a reporter on their 6pm bulletin and late edition.
"NBN, over the years, has given me a lot of opportunities to work in different roles," Goldsmith said.
"The day-to-day is mainly as a journalist, but I've also worked as a producer and acting chief of staff, weather presenter and of course newsreader. I love that about the job - that it's been so varied and interesting.
"I was thinking about what I love the most about being at NBN, and I think that it's a combination of things.
Above: Jane with Sports Presenter Kate Haberfield
"It's the places that the job takes me and the people that we meet. But also the new things that we learn on the road every day about our community and about the world.
"Every day is different, and that's what I love about it. I'm not stuck behind a desk, especially when I'm out reporting; I'm meeting people and telling their stories.
"Above all, I'd say it's the fact that we can do good and help people, highlight issues and give our community a voice. It can be just small neighbourhood issues, or it can be a much larger issue.
"I feel quite privileged that I'm able to do that for people."
Giving a voice to those who can't speak for themselves has been one of the true highlights of the past two decades for Goldsmith, who said she is most proud of her ongoing series of stories on the disappearance of three girls from Lake Macquarie.
"Over the last two or three years, I've done a lot of work, and a lot of it in my own time, about three girls who went missing from Lake Macquarie – Robyn Hickie, Amanda Robinson and Gordana Kotevski," she said.
"The first two went missing more than 40 years ago, and Gordana went missing in 1994. I've done a lot of work in that area in terms of stories and was a finalist in the Kennedy Awards for that work.
"I met Julie Talevski, the aunt of Gordana Kotevski, a few years ago. Gordana went missing from Charlestown when she was only 16-years-old, and I'd heard a lot about her case, but I hadn't ever done anything on it before. When I met Julie, it was just to do a simple little story about how they'd created these bumper stickers and were hoping to get the word out, trying to keep the focus on the case.
"When I was doing a story with her, it just really got under my skin. I wanted to know more about it, and I did a lot of research and then found out six months later or so that Lake Macquarie detectives were reopening her case. They were reviewing her case as well as the cases of Robyn Hickie and Amanda Robinson.
"From there, it's just become something that I'm really passionate about.
“You get to know these families, and the heartbreak and despair, you share that. I'm almost getting into tears thinking about it, what they go through every day, and I just want to be able to help.”
"There’s only so much I can do, but in my spare time at the moment when I’m not with my kids, or I’m not working, that's what I try to think about in terms of what else can I do, and what’s my next step? I go through old archive footage of NBN, and I see what I can find, and I go through old newspaper articles.
“I have grown close to the families and worked with the detectives on it, striving to get some answers about what happened to them.
“I have had people contacting me on social media who have had similar experiences, had also been abducted around a similar time, perhaps knew Gordana or have known some of the other girls.
“There have been all sorts of interesting things that have come from the work that I’ve done, and I’ve passed things onto the detectives, so I do feel like it might be helping. I just want them to finally get some answers about what happened to the girls.”
Being around the same age as Gordana really brought home the emotion of the story for Goldsmith as well.
“Her aunt has told me about how Gordana has missed out on having kids; she’s missed out on getting married, seeing her nephews and nieces growing up,” Goldsmith said.
“I can really put myself into that, I can understand that, and I think about what’s happened in my life since I was 16, and what has been taken away from Gordana, but also taken away from her family.
Above: Lucy, Jane, James, Elizabeth, Neil Keene. Photo By Jonathan Carroll
“I try not to be too edgy as a parent. I’ve got to try and let my kids be a bit independent and all of that, but when you do a lot of work in this space, about kids being abducted, it is sometimes on my mind in terms of what can happen.”
Goldsmith has three young children with her husband Neil Keene, a well-known former Newcastle journalist whom she met on the job in the least romantic of circumstances.
“We had a mutual friend, but we did meet on the job, in the salubrious location of a murder scene, which I think was at Bar Beach, and then again while walking through the chemical wastelands of the old BHP site,” Goldsmith said.
“I had always respected his work as a journalist. He’s a brilliant journalist and had done a lot of really great stories and worked over in Bali on the Bali Nine.
“We both loved journalism, and that kicked things off.
“We’ve been married 11 years and have three kids. Our girls Lucy and Elizabeth are five (they go to school next year), and our son, James, is nine. They keep us very busy.
“Because I’ve been reading weekend bulletins for more than ten years, I’ve missed out on a lot with the family because I work every weekend. But in a way, it sort of works for us, especially because of the age the kids are now. I’ve been able to be at home during the week looking after the girls because they’re not yet at school. It’s been nice that I’ve been able to have that time at home with the kids in the middle of the week.
“At the moment, I’m doing Saturday, Sunday, Monday at NBN, then I’m at home Tuesday, Wednesday, then Thursday I’m in Sydney, so it works quite nicely.
“My husband and I are like ships in the night at the moment, but Neil’s a great dad, and I am really, really grateful that I’m married to somebody that understands the industry and is happy for me to do things like having a day down in Sydney where I'm working, and that pulls me away from the family.
“He’s really happy for me to have that sort of challenge and is hugely supportive, so I feel lucky about that.”
Of course, having worked in one place for so many years means that Goldsmith has virtually developed a second family, which is made up of her workmates as well as the community at large.
“It really is like an extension of family,” Goldsmith said.
“The camera operators in particular because you spend so much time on the road with them every day, you get to know them so well, you know everything about them and their families.
“People like my producer, the 6pm producer who subs all the work and lines up the bulletin, Colin Baldwin, he’s been there for a long time. Andrew Lobb, my chief of staff and Blake Doyle, the news editor, and obviously Paul (Lobb) and Natasha (Beyersdorf) and a lot of the journos too, they’ve been there for a long time.
“I love that about NBN. It is like family, and everybody’s very supportive. I just feel grateful to have a job in the industry and still be there.
“I’m also grateful for NBN to still be operating as we have for such a long time, and that basically comes down to the community and the support of the viewers and the audience.”
Goldsmith has also felt that support in a far more personal way, especially following the premature birth of her daughters, who had to spend three weeks in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at the John Hunter Children’s Hospital.
“I think NBN did a post on the NBN Facebook page when Lucy and Elizabeth were born, and there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people saying, ‘Congratulations’, and hoping that the girls were okay, and all sorts of beautiful messages about my work as a newsreader,” Goldsmith said.
“It was really touching; it blew me away, actually.
“From time to time, people come up to me on the street as well, and it’s lovely. I always ask them their name, and I tell them thanks for watching, and we have a chat.
“It’s lovely that people do feel that I’m in their lounge rooms on the weekend and that I am almost part of the family.
“It is pretty remarkable, the love that people have for NBN. I think people are quite parochial in Newcastle, and NBN is just something they’ve grown up with. It gets switched on at six o’clock, and I think that’s a brilliant thing.
“We’re fortunate, but we also shouldn’t take that for granted, and we’ve got to keep doing what we do and improve ourselves as well to make sure that that continues.
“But I love being a journalist, and I can’t think of anything else I would want to do.”
