Channel 5’s Royal Correspondent, Simon Vigar, is a long-serving volunteer with the John Schofield Trust. He has mentored no fewer than five young journalists: Caron Bell, Georgia Coan, Sara Hemrajani, Dominic Johnson, and Simon O’Leary. In this video, he explains what motivates him to be a volunteer. 

Simon says, ‘Early on in my career in local radio… I was very lucky to have two or three unofficial mentors who encouraged me, cajoled me, sometimes they warned me and, looking back, that was incredibly important to have that experience to draw on and to work out what the next best move was. So, me being involved in the Trust now is just trying to pay some of that back’. 

We are incredibly grateful to the time and dedication Simon puts in for his mentees on top of his very busy day-job. Simon is part of a team of over 150 senior journalists who mentor early career and apprentice journalists. Without their contribution, our work in improving diversity in newsrooms would be impossible. 

Simon adds, ‘I thoroughly recommend getting involved, it’s an honour to be involved and frankly it’s an honour to be involved with anything that bears the name of John Schofield.’ 

If you would like to volunteer for the John Schofield Trust, please get in touch with Cathy Farmer on cathy.farmer@johnschofieldtrust.org.uk