John Plunkett

Editor-in-chief, The Poke




John Plunkett

Editor-in-chief, The Poke

  • John has spent three decades writing about TV, media and popular culture. As broadcasting correspondent of the Guardian he spent many happy years presenting the paper’s MediaTalk podcast, interviewing the likes of Matt Berry, Armando Iannucci and Charlie Brooker.

  • A former chairman of the television critics association, the Broadcasting Press Guild, he presented their annual awards ceremony and has a whole bunch of photos of him standing next to A-list celebrities (pictures available on request).

  • He has also hosted events for Bafta and the Edinburgh TV Festival, and chaired the press jury prize at the Rose d’Or entertainment festival in Montreux.

Experience

John spent nearly 20 years at the Guardian, first as a freelance and then as a staff member on the Media Guardian team, editing the paper’s Media Monkey diary column. He first started writing about the television business at Broadcast magazine, before joining Heat and (briefly) The Sun. He began his career in local newspapers at the Medway News in Kent and the Norwich Evening News. He has only done stand-up twice and on one of those occasions he was fortunate enough to share the bill with Greg Davies and Rhod Gilbert (before they were famous, obviously).

Education

John has an MA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University.