ABC Chair Ita Buttrose will deliver the 2022 Andrew Olle Media Lecture marking the national broadcaster’s 90th anniversary year.
The lecture, which has been in hiatus for two years due to COVID-19, will be held in Sydney on Friday 17 June.
Ita Buttrose is one of Australia’s best known and most influential media executives and the country’s most celebrated female journalist.
Ita came from a media background. Her father, Charles, was a distinguished editor and war correspondent, who later became the ABC’s Deputy Manager.
Ita started as a copygirl at the age of 15, for The Australian Women’s Weekly, the magazine she later edited. She was the founding editor of Cleo magazine in 1972 and was the first woman to be appointed editor of Sydney’s Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph newspapers in the 1980s.
She was named Australian of the Year in 2013 and was inducted into the Australian Media Hall of Fame in 2017.
Ita is a founding member and former president of Chief Executive Women and is patron of Dementia Australia and the Macular Disease Foundation as well as Emeritus Director of Arthritis Australia.
She says, “Andrew Olle was for many Australians the gold standard of broadcasting, a trusted and much-loved journalist whose programs and broadcasts were not to be missed.
“I was proud to call him a friend and I am honoured to deliver the lecture that not only carries his name but that also celebrates the journalism he stood by. This has extra significance given the ABC’s own 90th anniversary celebrations.”
Managing Director of the ABC, David Anderson, says there is no-one more fitting to deliver the Andrew Olle Media Lecture in the ABC’s 90th year than one of the greats of the Australian media industry.
He says, “Ita is synonymous with success in the Australian media, having held some of the most senior roles in newspapers, television, radio and magazines. She has made a huge contribution to the evolution of media in this country and as Chair of the ABC, continues to provide unparalleled leadership.
“I have no doubt that Ita’s 2022 Andrew Olle Media Lecture will be an insightful, revealing, thought-provoking and personal look at the role the fourth estate plays in Australia and where its heading.”
Previous Andrew Olle Media Lecture speakers include Peter FitzSimons, Lisa Wilkinson, Caroline Wilson, Joseph Kahn, Waleed Aly, Helen McCabe, Kate McClymont, Mark Colvin, Laurie Oakes, Ray Martin, John Hartigan, John Doyle, Lachlan Murdoch, Kerry Stokes and Jana Wendt.