Jane Clayson Johnson

From a limo whisking her to get her hair and makeup done each morning to a minivan in the carpool lane in Boston, Jane Clayson Johnson has lived two very different lives—but says she would not trade one for the other. Once living the glamour of a career in network television, she eventually left it all behind for what she calls “the most important and prestigious job I will ever have . . . to be a wife and a mother.”¹ 

A graduate of Brigham Young University, Johnson attended on a violin performance scholarship, playing with the BYU Philharmonic and chamber orchestras before earning her degree in journalism. She began her broadcast career at KSL in Salt Lake City, then worked as a correspondent for ABC News in Los Angeles. In 1999 she joined CBS News, co-anchoring The Early Show alongside Bryant Gumbel and later reporting for 48 Hours and the CBS Evening News. 

Her work took her around the world covering presidential campaigns, natural disasters, and humanitarian crises. She covered the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks live and interviewed US presidents, world leaders, and Hollywood stars. Over her career she has earned Emmy and Edward R. Murrow Awards for her reporting. 

When she married her husband, Mark Johnson, in 2003, Johnson made a pivotal decision to step away from network news. She calls it the best decision of her life, saying, “I left something that few people experience. For that experience I will be forever grateful. I hope I did some good. But I feel like it is time for me to do more important work within the walls of my own home.”² 

Since then, she has authored two best-selling books: I Am a Mother, chronicling her decision to leave her career to have a family, and Silent Souls Weeping, a compassionate examination of depression shaped by her own experience. Additionally, she has hosted NPR programs, including On Point and Here & Now, and contributed to organizations such as the Wheatley Institute at BYU, the US Naval Institute Foundation, and Deseret Management Corporation. 

She and her husband are the parents of five children and now cherish their role as grandparents. They are members of the President’s Leadership Council at BYU–Pathway Worldwide and are active in their Cambridge, Massachusetts, young single adult ward, where her husband is bishop and she facilitates the Church’s Emotional Resilience program. 

Notes: 

1. “A wife and mother first and foremost,” Church News. February 7, 2004. https://www.thechurchnews.com/2004/2/7/23238946/a-wife-and-mother-first-and-foremost/ 
2. Church News, “A wife and mother first and foremost.”