1 week ago
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Veteran broadcaster Virginia Trioli will bid farewell to the ABC after almost three decades to pursue creative ventures.
“After spending the last few years in the company of some of Australia’s most distinctive creatives, I realise I’m a bit of a creative type too, and so it’s time for me to independently pursue my own ideas,” the founding News Breakfast co-host said in a statement released by the ABC.
“I have been able to take up some of the greatest opportunities that the ABC has to offer over the last 27 years, and I’m staggered at my good fortune. It’s made me the journalist, broadcaster, writer and program-maker that I am. Grateful doesn’t begin to cover it. In return, I hope to have some new ideas for the national broadcaster down the track.”
Trioli joined the public broadcaster in 1999 after working as a journalist for The Age and The Bulletin magazine. She hosted Drive on ABC Radio Melbourne, and then Mornings on ABC Radio Sydney. She later presented Lateline, hosted Q&A and 7.30, as well as regularly contributing to Insiders and Sunday Arts.
From memorable interviews to covering pivotal national moments, Trioli said there were too many career highlights to mention, but that connecting to ABC audiences is what stood out.
“There’s an intimacy, trust and genuine care that is created between a daily radio or television program and an audience, and showing up every day for years is an act of faith that few other platforms can rival. I will forever see my radio and Breakfast audiences as family,” she said.
“I am proud of holding power to account in my interviews with prime ministers from John Howard to Anthony Albanese, with the odd stoush with [former] defence minister Peter Reith along the way.
“Stories like the Black Saturday and Black Summer bushfires, 9/11, the COVID pandemic and far too many terrorist events shaped the way I approach news, always wanting to put the viewer and listener at the centre. We beat John Laws when I was hosting Sydney Mornings on [ABC] 702, and took ABC News Breakfast to number two, making it the essential program it is today.”
Trioli’s Weekend Reads have also been a popular Saturday morning column since 2019. She has most recently been the presenter of Creative Types with Virginia Trioli, which profiled the processes of Australia’s leading creative minds, including George Miller, Trent Dalton and Marta Dusseldorp.
The ABC’s managing director, Hugh Marks, said Trioli had been at the heart of some of the public broadcaster’s most important programs and conversations.
“Her achievements are many. I also know Virginia has ambitions to explore new work opportunities and I hope we can work together to realise them in the coming years. I will be watching her every success with enthusiasm, and I hope much of it is with the ABC,” Marks said.
Trioli has received three Walkley Awards and was judged Best Columnist at the Melbourne Press Club awards in 1999. She also won Best Radio Current Affairs Report in 2020.
More to come
