Phil Jones is a sports reporter and presenter, known for his work with BBC Sport and CNN. Jones is an accomplished writer and co-creator of - howtochristmas.co.uk - which contains his collection of children's stories. He is a guest lecturer on media and carries out freelance work in home interior services.
Jones was the BBC’s athletics reporter for some 15 years, and working trackside at the London 2012 Olympics, interviewing such athletes as Usain Bolt, Mo Farah, Jessica Ennis-Hill and Greg Rutherford. After taking a break from TV work late in 2017, Jones returned to the BBC's coverage of athletics with 'legends' features on Linford Christie, Sally Gunnell and Jonathan Edwards during the Doha World Championships output in 2019. Jones reported on four Summer Olympic Games for the BBC, along with four Commonwealth Games, six World Athletics Championships and all the BBC’s domestic athletics output, including the London Marathon and the Great North Run. Jones presented Grandstand several times in 2004 before its long run ended. He covered Wimbledon for more than two decades. In 2017 Jones reported from Wimbledon for the 15th year in his second spell with BBC Sport, although he first worked on the Championships as a BBC reporter in 1994 before moving to work in the United States that same year. Thereafter, he covered Wimbledon for American networks CNN and TNT until returning to the UK in 2002. Jones presented for almost eight years from September 1994 for CNN International, hosting its flagship World Sport show almost 2,000 times and co-hosting CNN’s coverage of the Atlanta 1996 Olympics, Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympics, FIFA World Cupfootball in France in 1998 and both Euro 96 and Euro 2000 football tournaments. He also presented CNN’s weekly golf show for two years, reported from the Masters Tournament and co-hosted the US PGA Championship for network channel CNNSi in 2001.
Personal life
Jones is a member of the LGBT+ community, one of few male presenters/reporters to have worked in sports broadcasting to come out as gay/bi-sexual. "Casual homophobia is all too prevalent in and around sport and I endured it in silence for many years," said Jones after publicly coming out in 2009. "Only by coming out and being true to myself did I believe I could tackle ridiculous comments and prejudice with honesty and integrity." In later years, Jones was quoted as saying: "Casual homophobia - homophobia of any kind - in the work place is something BBC Sport has failed to properly address. The wider sports world is no better. It saddens me that we appear years away from a sporting environment in which, say, a current Premier League footballer might feel comfortable enough to come out as gay or bi. I would dearly love to be proved wrong."
Recognition
Jones was one or three nominees for the 2006 Television Sports Award in the Sports News Reporter category.
