Dr. Bennett was a teacher who moved the family frequently. Jana and her sisters spent time in Kansas and New Hampshire with Jana’s four sisters before moving to England. Jana was 13 years old when the family settled in East Sussex.
She went to St. Anne’s College, Oxford University, and graduated in 1977 with a degree in philosophy, politics and economics. She was an amateur singer and was eventually recruited by Tony Blair, an Oxford student. She earned her master’s degree in international relations from the London School of Economics in 1978. In 1978, she was a news trainee at the BBC.
Her early journalistic work included news documentaries, including “The Disappeared: Voices from a Secret War,” about the repressive military regime in Argentina in the late 1970s and 1980s. She and John Simpson, a fellow BBC journalist, also wrote a book, “The Disappeared and the Mothers of the Plaza” (1986), which included firsthand accounts by mothers to find the thousands of children whom the Argentine regime had “disappeared.”
While working on the BBC’s Newsnight program, Ms. Bennett met Mr. Clemmow, an editor and executive at the BBC. They were married in 1995.
She is survived by Alexandra Bennett-Clemmow, a daughter; Skomer Bennett–Clemmow, a son; and Robin King, Candace, Shelley Bennett, her sisters.
She left the BBC in 1999 to become head of TLC Discovery in Washington, D.C. She created reality dramas and interior design programs based on popular British formats. This helped to increase both ratings and revenues.
In 2002, she was appointed director of television at the BBC.
After her diagnosis in May 2019, Ms. Bennett initially told few people of her illness because she wanted to avoid “an extended wake,” her longtime friend and BBC colleague, Lorraine Heggessey, wrote Tuesday The Guardian
She was a tireless worker on the boards of both the British Library (London) and the Headlong Theater Company (Headlong). In December 2019, she made public her diagnosis and joined OurBrainBank, a non-profit group that allows patients with glioblastoma worldwide to consult their doctors. It also promotes research into the condition.
Source: NY Times