Jane Clayson Johnson

Clayson was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, and lived in Boston, Aberdeen, Scotland; Nashville, and Seattle during her early childhood.

[5] Clayson attended Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah on a violin performance scholarship and graduated in 1990 with a degree in journalism.

She traveled to China to write and produce Faces of Hope, a documentary and series of stories about American doctors providing life-changing care to Chinese children with disabilities.

For ABC's affiliate news service, NewsOne, she reported on major events such as the Atlantic Olympic Park bombing and the crash of TWA Flight 800.

On overseas assignments, she covered the crash of Korean Air 747 in Guam, NATO's strikes against Kosovo and the resulting refugee crisis in Macedonia and, in Indonesia, the riots that led to the fall from power of the dictator Suharto.

[14] From 2006 to 2020, Clayson was the primary fill-in on the public radio program On Point, produced by WBUR in Boston and syndicated by NPR, when the regular hosts were absent.

Over the course of her career, Clayson has interviewed U.S. Presidents and First Ladies, an array of other American political leaders, as well as other heads of state, authors, scientists, numerous celebrities from Hollywood and the Broadway stage, and she grilled Martha Stewart shortly prior to her indictment, conviction, and imprisonment for securities fraud.

She is a sought-after speaker and host of special media events as diverse as 9/11 Coming Together, a 20th anniversary commemoration of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the Children's Miracle Network national telethon.

Her second book, Silent Souls Weeping, released in 2019, is a candid look at clinical depression, featuring dozens of first-person stories about the experience and impact of mental illness.