A specialist in comparative media history and the history of communication, she has also been a television factual programmes producer, a broadcast documentary maker and was  commercial breakfast TV's first  on screen news reporter for the north of  England.  She publishes university course books  on the theory and practice of these media professional areas and on journalism history.

Jane trained as a French historian at some of the UK's leading  world class universities- University College London, Cambridge and the London School of Economics- and is currently researching in the areas of  comparative 19^th and early 20^th century  economic and social history relating to gender and press in France,  French India and the British  Empire.