{"id":1035,"date":"2020-12-09T09:53:52","date_gmt":"2020-12-08T22:53:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/?p=1035"},"modified":"2020-12-09T09:53:52","modified_gmt":"2020-12-08T22:53:52","slug":"wild-woman-jan-fran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wild-woman-jan-fran","title":{"rendered":"Meet wild woman, Jan Fran"},"content":{"rendered":"

To us, Jan Fran embodies what it means to be a wild woman. She\u2019s intelligent, loud, funny, driven, and has some serious sass. Jan, in our opinion, is one of Australia\u2019s best young journalists and TV presenters. Not sure who we\u2019re talking about? Go watch <\/span>The Frant<\/span><\/i> over at <\/span>The<\/span><\/i> Guardian<\/span><\/i> or her <\/span>Brief History of the Dildo<\/span><\/i> video. Now that you two have been acquainted, pour yourself a glass of Shiraz and keep reading.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Jan, who confesses to have always been \u201cquite opinionated \u2014 just ask my parents\u201d, made her name through working at <\/span>The Feed<\/span><\/i> on SBS Viceland. You\u2019ll now find her on Network Ten\u2019s<\/span> The Project<\/span><\/i>, hosting ABC\u2019s <\/span>The Pineapple Project <\/span><\/i>podcast, and chiming in on Tom Tilley\u2019s new podcast, <\/span>The Briefing<\/span><\/i>. She\u2019s even won one of Australian journalism\u2019s highest accolades: a Walkley Award. We love Jan for her satire, smarts and humour, but has she always been this way?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always been loud, but you can\u2019t just <\/span>have<\/span><\/i> a voice \u2014 you need to work out a way to get that voice to people,\u201d she explains. For Jan, her voice and opinions were first nurtured at SBS in 2013. After a six-year stint she left SBS, yet her voice has continued to inform and inspire millennials everywhere \u2014 thanks to social media.<\/span><\/p>\n

The online world\u00a0<\/b><\/h1>\n

Unfortunately, having a public profile often invites trolls, but Jan\u2019s audience is respectful. \u201cI\u2019m lucky not to be in the firing line of trolls, which I imagine would suck a lot,\u201d Jan says.<\/span> But that doesn\u2019t mean her followers don\u2019t speak up and share their points of view.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jan is very pragmatic when it comes to people sharing their opinions, especially when they differ to hers. \u201cWhen you\u2019re like me and so public about things, people have a right to comment on them or have an opinion on what you\u2019re putting out there. I don\u2019t mind if their opinion differs from mine; they might have a new source or study that I may have missed. I want them to throw their hat into the ring, throw their voice into the comment section,\u201d she shares. \u201cSocial media has been great in a lot of ways because it has amplified the voices of people we wouldn\u2019t usually hear from.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Since having a public profile, however, Jan has found that being constantly connected online can very quickly zap your time, energy and brain power. \u201cSocial media never switches off. It\u2019s infinite. I\u2019ve had to draw some boundaries between myself and being constantly online.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the things that has helped Jan create healthy boundaries on social media is her \u201cblock hard, block fast\u201d rule. \u201cI am a big fan of blocking anyone, anywhere, for whatever reason,\u201d she says. \u201cIf someone doesn\u2019t like the look of your face then they can block you \u2014 that is their prerogative. And maybe you don\u2019t agree with that or maybe that\u2019s objectively incorrect, but they have every right to do that. You just don\u2019t know what is going on with that person or what kind of day they\u2019ve had,\u201d she says. \u201cIf we are going to continue having conversations through mediums like social media that privilege antagonism, to some extent, then we\u2019ve got to make boundaries around our mental health.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think people think my page is a democracy and it\u2019s not. It\u2019s a dictatorship and I am the dictator. It is my page and I run it how I want to run it. And it\u2019s totally okay if you don\u2019t agree with that; you are free to unfollow my page.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Influence during times of crisis<\/b><\/h1>\n

When it comes to using her influence and platform during times of crisis, like the global pandemic, Jan says that \u201csometimes the best thing you can do is shut the f**k up. In times of crisis, people need to hear from those in the know and if your voice is going to cloud that, then you should think long and hard about how you should use your voice. It\u2019s not always what you say \u2014 it\u2019s what you don\u2019t say that can have a much more profound impact.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She shares that she reluctantly created two videos during the COVID-19 crisis, both of which amplified expert voices and shared links to reputable sources. Jan says that in those videos, \u201cI shared expert immunologists who were talking about the spread of the virus and how we can curtail it. It\u2019s important to hear from people who know what they are talking about and not just the voices in mainstream media.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Writing her memoir<\/b><\/h1>\n

During COVID, Jan has been in the midst of writing her memoir, <\/span>Of Middle Eastern Appearance<\/span><\/i>, which will be published in 2021. \u201cWriting the book has been an adjustment because I\u2019m so used to having daily deadlines. A book has a really long deadline and I\u2019ve had to set myself many more immediate deadlines to get through it.\u201d Wishing she could write her pages from the pub or a caf\u00e9, Jan notes that the global lockdown hasn\u2019t been easy for writing. \u201cLockdown isn\u2019t really conducive to getting the creative juices flowing; there\u2019s a lot of uncertainty and a lot of my work processes have changed, so I\u2019ve had to prioritise that.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Recording podcasts and videos from home during lockdown has been a learning curve, with lots of technical issues, but Jan\u2019s more concerned about the future of journalism. \u201cLocal and regional newsrooms across Australia are shutting down or going digital. We\u2019re in a transitional phase and it could be good or bad for the industry,\u201d she suggests. Despite the changing landscape, Jan will continue to tell people\u2019s stories. \u201cBeing a journalist gives me open access to people. I can ask someone about their life and because I\u2019m in this position where I\u2019m reporting on their story, they trust me. And suddenly, we\u2019ve had a conversation for half an hour. It\u2019s like a key to people\u2019s lives.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For more, visit Jan at @jan__fran<\/a> on Instagram.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To spicy voices like Jan Fran\u2019s being amplified? We say hallelujah! Follow Jan\u2019s witty, no-BS approach to ideas, ethics, politics, feminism, pop culture and everything between.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[114,84,109],"tags":[251,252,250],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1035"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1052,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035\/revisions\/1052"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}