Career

Jenny-May Clarkson on her struggle for acceptance at TVNZ

The former netball star, mum of two and sports presenter on getting her first big break in TV.
Jenny May Clarkson

Jenny May Clarkson

Jenny-May Clarkson has admitted she struggled to be accepted when she first made the leap to TV, following careers in both sports and the New Zealand police.

While answering the New Zealand Herald’s Twelve Questions, Jenny-May told of how a “chance meeting” led to her kickstarting her media career, but that the path to acceptance wasn’t easy.

Clarkson said she appreciated she was just a “former netballer who’d waltzed in with no media training,” and that this had let to some people not being on board with her straight away.

“I wasn’t widely accepted,” she told the Herald. “But lots of people were good to me like Wayne Hay, Martin Tasker and Toni Street.”

“I was pretty terrible at first but I was lucky to have good people willing to invest time and effort in me.”

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The mum of two, who worked as a policewoman prior to becoming a national sports star, added that she took a “brutal bashing” for some interviews she did at the Commonwealth Games, but that she tries hard not to listen to critics.

“If I stuff up on air I’ll spend the whole drive home going, ‘Everyone thinks you’re an idiot.'” But despite this, May says she’s learned not to take it to heart. Keep moving forward is her mantra.

In the spirit of this, Jenny-May has signed up for the ocean swimming stretch of a triathlon later in April (part of the World Masters Series), despite having a fear of open water.

When asked if facing her fear has helped cure it at all, the presenter said she “constantly hear[s] the Jaws theme tune in my head,” but that she had to give it a shot.

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