Jon joined the Breakfast presenting team in 2010.
Jon covers for Dan and Charlie when they need a lie-in. He welcomes the chance to sit down on the Breakfast sofa because he spends most of his time standing-up – as a roving reporter for BBC News.
Jon was born in Hull, grew up in Cheshire, spent a year at a high-school in California and studied Politics in Devon. It was while "mucking around" in the studios of University Radio Exeter that he decided to pursue a career in broadcast journalism.
He joined the BBC in 1993 as a trainee reporter, working at local radio stations from Newcastle to Suffolk. Despite writing-off an expensive radio-car on his first day as a reporter (he forgot there was a mast on the roof when he drove into a multi-storey car-park), he somehow managed to get a full-time job at BBC Bristol. He started there on the same day as another young journalist – one Susanna Reid!
After working in local radio and regional TV in Bristol, Jon went to London to work as political reporter and news correspondent.
He spent a year travelling round the world with his wife (who's also a journalist), reporting as they went through China, South East Asia, Australasia and Central America. In Mexico they found themselves in the middle of a deadly hurricane.
On his return to the UK, Jon became the BBC's south and west of England correspondent for national TV and radio.
He sometimes wishes he was paid per mile. His patch stretches from Land's End up to Tewkesbury, and over to Oxfordshire and Hampshire. "But it's one of the most beautiful parts of Britain – so I'm not complaining."
A quarter of a million miles (and three children) later, it's a job he still relishes because of the sheer variety of stories he has to cover. "Some of the reporting has been tough – like the repatriations at Wootton Bassett, the murder of Jo Yeates and the Vanessa George child-abuse scandal. And hardly a month goes by without me being battered by gale-force winds or smothered in snow - but I also get to meet some amazing people and report on some fantastic things – like the Glastonbury Festival and an octogenarian sky-diver."
Jon also covers stories outside his patch. He was the Olympics correspondent for BBC News at Six and Ten during the London 2012 Games. And he travelled across the Atlantic with a ship full of history buffs to commemorate the centenary of the Titanic tragedy.
He has done several stints abroad as a BBC foreign correspondent – including Los Angeles and Washington DC. He's also worked all over Europe.
Jon has presented all kinds of programmes for the BBC. He has anchored Drive on 5 live, documentaries for Radio 4, the BBC Two environmental series It's Not Easy Being Green and a documentary about bread-making for BBC Four. He's still a bit confused about the last one.
