Real Journalism by Leeds Hacks

How Rollo Ross’ moral compass lead him to becoming LA journalist of the year

rollo ross
A man who spent his earlier years studying classics wasn’t sure where his future was headed, but after an extremely lucky opportunity with Channel 5 fell into his hands; his career changed overnight. This is the story of LA journalist of the year, Rollo Ross.

During his time at Packwood Haugh Boarding School, Ross, 49, was known as a trouble maker, but not for the obvious reasons one may think. His ability to recognise unfair situations from the age of seven meant he often found himself being punished for challenging teachers in order to stand up for himself and his classmates. His headmaster always admired him for his bravery and the impeccable moral compass that came so naturally to him. “I think that was the start of my journey to becoming a journalist, feeling like I should stand up for myself and for other people. I think that’s where I first felt inspired.”

Ross also loved English during his time at school although, despite his passion for writing, was not well liked by his teachers and was given harsh grades and told he would never make it as a writer. Nevertheless, Ross remained inspired by his tutor Michael Tolkien, grandson to J.R.R Tolkien, Lord of the Rings author, who encouraged him to continue to pursue his passion. “He would always tell me stories about his family and writing which I really enjoyed and it was him [Tolkien] who said he loved my writing and that my school were wrong. Thank God I listened to him and not my teachers.” Ross laughed.

Ross then went on to Newcastle University where he studied classics BA. His relatively empty class timetable meant that he had lots of free time and found himself often feeling bored and looking for other things to do, that’s where he found the theatre society and produced a pantomime. “There was a competition for who can write the funniest sketch and I won so they said I had to write the whole thing, they brought in a guy who had experience with playwriting and production so he helped me. I ended up putting on the pantomime every year after that.”

Ross continued: “We went to the Edinburgh Fringe and put on a really successful play called Melina that we wrote ourselves. I was also thinking of going into theatre but I didn’t really like the people because I found them over emotional. I knew I loved writing plays and getting messages across though.”

After his graduation, Ross got accepted for work experience at World Wide Television News in London working as an intern for 2 weeks. Little did he know, a window of opportunity was about to open. “For the first week, I was watching people doing edits but in my second week, the production assistants wanted to take a week off and they couldn’t find any cover so they trained me up and then after that, one of the assistants for senior management stormed out whilst planning a television festival so they offered me the job.”

During one afternoon in 1997, Ross got talking to one of sales men in senior management and discovered that Channel 5, which was just starting at the time, was producing a show about boy and girl bands but the producer hadn’t written anything for their upcoming pitch so Ross bravely stepped up for the job.

“I spent the entire weekend interviewing all these bands like the Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys. I started thinking, what do the public not know about these bands?” Ross asked himself.

He would go on to explain: “This lead me to putting together a documentary called ‘Love Me for a Reason’ and it immediately got commission.

So I went from production assistant to producing a Channel 5 documentary overnight.” Ross then embarked on a different career path at Ghetty Images which he hated because it was so corporate and had nothing to do with TV journalism. He left after four years and went freelance where he worked for E-News and USA Today. “During the work Christmas party, I was told that I was going to LA to work for Reuters, the top news agency in the world which was such an exciting and incredible opportunity. I’ve worked for them ever since.”

In 2022, Ross submitted his best stories for Journalist of the year but wasn’t convinced he would win. “I was actually getting ready to leave because I thought I hadn’t won anything, then they announced my name for the award and I was just in absolute shock.” He laughed.

It’s safe to say that Ross can be deemed successful throughout his entire career, so what advice does the journalist of the year have for other aspiring journalists? After deep thought he said: “You have to think of a story like a tube of toothpaste. Once you squeeze the story out you can’t put it back in again, you have to be 100% sure the story is correct.

Also the energy you put into someone is the energy that you’ll get back.”

Written by Annabelle Farmer

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