About Us

Committee Member and National Co-patron

Caroline Jones

Caroline Jones AO Hon DLitt (University Sunshine Coast; Hon DLitt (Sydney University) is national co-patron, with Victoria Laurie, of Women in Media.

She is a veteran journalist, author and broadcaster, who has had a 50-year association with the ABC; working most recently with ABCTV Australian Story (1996-2016).

She was the first woman reporter on This Day Tonight (the first Australian national current affairs program, from 1968-72), and the first woman to anchor Four Corners (1972-81), concurrently with broadcasting on ABC Sydney morning radio.

She is a sponsor of the Mary MacKillop Tertiary Indigenous Scholarship Program, and on her retirement, the ABC created the ABC News Caroline Jones Indigenous Scholarship.

Convenor and National Co-Patron

Victoria Laurie

Victoria Laurie is a freelance journalist and feature writer, and former senior reporter with The Australian in the Perth bureau.

She has worked in TV, on radio and for magazines including The Bulletin, HQ, Australian Geographic, and The Weekend Australian magazine.

She is a founding member of Women in Media and is national co-patron with Caroline Jones.

Committee Member and National Co-Chair

Cath Webber

Cath Webber is the Co-Chair of Women In Media Australia.

She has worked in the media for more than 20 years, appears weekly on Channel 7’s Sunrise as a commentator and is a founding member of the Queensland WIM committee.

Webber is a Strategic Communications Adviser and prior to that was Editor of the Gold Coast Bulletin – its first female editor in 130 years and the same paper where she started as a cadet in 1995.

Before returning to the paper where she started her journalism career, she was assistant editor across The Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, deputy editor at the Townsville Bulletin and deputy features editor at the Irish Examiner, a national broadsheet in Ireland.

She is also passionate about digital, having worked as website editor for http://www.thetelegraph.com.au. Webber has a degree in journalism and film and television.

Committee Member and National Co-Chair

Kathy McLeish

Kathy McLeish is the Co-Chair of Women in Media Australia and was the founding Convenor of Women in Media Queensland.

An award-winning ABC journalist and producer who has reported for programs across the network including 7.30 Qld, Stateline, 7.30, Landline, Australian Story and TV and radio news and current affairs.

She has executive produced Stateline and 7.30 Qld.

She’s currently searching out with wonderful towns and communities across the country for ABC TV’s Back Roads.

Coverage more than 20 years in media has included extensive reporting of Queensland natural disasters, the Nauru Detention Centre riots, the last Mentoring Taskforce handover in Afghanistan and race correspondent for the Sydney to Hobart yacht race.

McLeish was named Queensland Journalist of the Year for an investigative series, which triggered a Commission of Inquiry and a $60 million restructuring of youth mental health services in Queensland.

She has degrees in journalism and psychology.

Convenor and National Co-Patron

Victoria Laurie

Victoria Laurie is a freelance journalist and feature writer, and former senior reporter with The Australian in the Perth bureau.

She has worked in TV, on radio and for magazines including The Bulletin, HQ, Australian Geographic, and The Weekend Australian magazine.

She is a founding member of Women in Media and is national co-patron with Caroline Jones.

National Board Member

Anita Jacoby AM

Anita Jacoby, AM, is one of Australia’s most experienced media executives with a career spanning more than 30 years in the broadcast industry. An award-winning TV, film and current affairs producer, she has created and produced hundreds of hours of content for many of Australia’s most successful programs.

Jacoby is currently an Associate Member of the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

Appointed by the Minister for Communications in 2013, her term has recently been extended to 2023. From 2013-2015 she was Managing Director of ITV Studios Australia, responsible for the Australian operations of this worldwide production company.

Prior to ITV, Jacoby managed one of the most successful independent production companies, Zapruder’s other films, alongside Andrew Denton. Zapruder’s produced many successful original programs including Enough Rope, The Gruen Transfer, Hungry Beast and Elders.

She has worked in senior production roles for all Australia’s commercial networks as well as the ABC, SBS and Foxtel, on programs such as 60 Minutes, Witness, Sunday, Laws and Today Show.

Her work has seen her awarded five AFI (Australian Film Institute) Awards, an AACTA (Australian Academy of Cinema & TV Arts) Award, an Order of Australia Media Award, Logie, Asia-Pacific Broadcast Union Award and numerous other professional awards.

Jacoby is a strong advocate for women in media and leadership. She is a member of Chief Executive Women and the Australian Institute of Company Director’s; a non-executive director of Women in Media and Documentary Australia Foundation; a member of Screen Producer’s Australia and an Ambassador/Advisory Board member for 1 Million Women. She is also a director of the Australian Film Institute/AACTA, The Funding Network and an Ambassador and Chair of the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme’s 60th Anniversary Committee.

Previously, she was a Director of headspace (National Youth Mental Health Foundation) from 2013-2016 and Arts Law Centre Australia, 2013-2016.

Jacoby mentors many women and men in the media industry. She also supports a number of NFP’s including the Walkley Foundation (established the annual Jacoby Walkley Scholarship in 2013 for young broadcast journalists), Alzheimer’s Australia and Belvoir Theatre.

In 2019 she was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia.

Committee Member and National Board Member

Danielle Cronin

Danielle Cronin is the national deputy editor for ABC News Digital.

She was the first female editor of metropolitan masthead the Brisbane Times.

The award-winning journalist has worked in Brisbane, Bundaberg, Africa, and Canberra where she covered 10 federal budgets and three federal elections.

As a reporter for The Canberra Times, she spent seven years in the federal press gallery reporting on stories ranging from the coup that ended Kevin Rudd’s prime ministership to the Canberra firestorm, which was recognised with a Walkley Award.

She has also worked in South Africa as the inaugural winner of the Independent Newspapers Fellowship for Australia and travelled to Germany as the winner of the German Prize for Journalism.

After a long career in newspapers, Cronin joined the digital revolution and is keenly interested in pushing the boundaries of storytelling and innovative ways to build online communities including through the use of social media.

She has been a Women in Media Queensland committee member since its inception plus is the national digital convenor and serves on the board of Women in Media Australia.

Board Member

Sophie Robertson

Sophie Robertson is the director and company secretary of Women in Media Australia.

She is one of Queensland’s most experienced media lawyers. She advises some of Australia’s largest media organisations, helping journalists and media mitigate and manage risk, protect sources and defend claims against them.

Robertson has degrees in law and business and is a senior associate at Bartley Cohen.

Convenor and National Co-Patron

Victoria Laurie

Victoria Laurie is a freelance journalist and feature writer, and former senior reporter with The Australian in the Perth bureau.

She has worked in TV, on radio and for magazines including The Bulletin, HQ, Australian Geographic, and The Weekend Australian magazine.

She is a founding member of Women in Media and is national co-patron with Caroline Jones.

Convenor

Cathie Schnitzerling

Cathie Schnitzerling is the Executive Producer of the ABC’s rural flagship television program Landline. She was previously the Regional Editor for Queensland, managing 10 ABC bureaux with 120 staff and responsible for the editorial content in radio, television, online and social media for the regions.

She was the first woman to become Director of News for the Ten Network in Brisbane and Sydney. She’s worked in three capital cities for three different networks and has been a television and radio reporter, presenter and producer.

Schnitzerling has also produced an independent documentary for SBS and has won awards for her documentary writing and television production.

She also headed media, communications and marketing teams in state government.

In 2014, Schnitzerling was recognised for her mentoring and leadership skills with a Queensland Clarion award for her Contribution to Journalism.

A mother of two adult children, she has recently graduated from the Queensland University of Technology Business School with a certificate in leadership, coaching and mentoring.

Convenor

Emma Macdonald

Emma Macdonald is a multi-award winning journalist and is Associate Editor of HerCanberra.

She is the convenor of Women in Media Canberra.

She is the co-founder of maternal health charity Send Hope Not Flowers and is the Telstra ACT Business Women of the Year for 2016 in the Social Enterprise category.

Macdonald has been a journalist for 25 years – 13 of which were spent in the Press Gallery where she was The Canberra Times Bureau Chief.

She has won numerous awards for her journalism, two Walkley awards (1993, 2003) and was a national finalist in 2001.

She won the John Douglas Pringle British Award for Journalism in 1998, was awarded a Vincent Fairfax Ethics in Leadership Fellowship in 2002, the same year she was Highly Commended in the Paul Lyneham Award for Press Gallery Journalism.

In 2011, she was made a Distinguished Alumni of the University of Canberra.

Convenor

Samela Harris

Samela Harris is Convenor of Women In Media SA.

A member of the SA Journalists’ Hall of Fame and an Australia Day Ambassador, her newspaper career in the UK and Australia included years as Arts Editor, Op-Ed writer, senior features writer, Internet columnist, gossip columnist, food writer, senior theatre critic and inaugural online editor of The Advertiser.

She was the first woman employed as a full-time general reporter on The News in Adelaide and also the first female Australian Rules football columnist in Australia.

She was founding chair of the Adelaide Critics Circle.

She is the author of a humorous cookbook, On a Shoestring: Recipes from the House of the Raising Sons.

She is chair of the SA Media Awards, reviews theatre for thebarefootreview.com.au, travel blogs at SaTrek.blogspot.com and blogs when the mood strikes her at angrypenguin.blogspot.com.

Convenor

Jane Canaway

Jane Canaway served a cadetship in England on regional broadsheets before moving to Australia.

Since then she has worked as a writer, sub-editor, and editor across a range of community newspapers (Fairfax titles, The Weekly Review) and magazines (New Idea, Your Garden, Home Beautiful), as well as freelancing for several years.

She has edited the book Plants of Melbourne’s Western Plains. It’s more interesting than it sounds.

She now writes for the ABC, mostly for Gardening Australia but also for ABC Life online.

Throughout her career she has held roles as a union delegate, serving on the Federal Council of MEAA for many years and as president of the media section in Victoria.

Canaway was a founding member of Women in Media Victoria and has served as secretary and convenor.

Convenor

Sue Bell

Sue Bell is a digital learning consultant and an interactive media specialist.

She designs, develops, and delivers digital media, design thinking, and cyber entrepreneurship training for private organisations, tertiary institutions, and media professionals.

Her passion is to up-skill women in the digital technology space and to expand people’s online engagement using interactive storytelling for social media platforms.

She also teaches micro-credentialed courses on how to write stories for new and emerging technologies, including virtual, augmented, and mixed reality.

Sue is the founder and director of the successful Launceston Freelance Festival where Australia’s top freelancers converge for several days of workshops, networking, and fun.

Co-convenor

Skye Rugless

A senior marketing leader, Skye Rugless has worked for several leading media brands including The Times (UK), The Australian and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

She works closely with content creators on engagement strategies to grow audiences, revenue and (most importantly) customer advocacy for premium news and entertainment brands. In her most recent role, Head of Subscriptions for The Australian, Rugless led a team of marketers responsible for more than 60% of total business revenue, and orchestrated hundreds of exclusive events and experiences connecting subscribers to the journalists and editors behind the stories they love.

She loves the fast-paced nature of media, and the comradery within the industry. Having just recently graduated from The Marketing Academy’s scholarship program – a highly selective leadership program for media and marketing professionals – she is thrilled to join the Women in Media NSW committee in 2020 to help bring the extraordinary women in media together.

Co-convenor

Joanne Sanders

Joanne Sanders has 15 years’ experience working across the media, theatre and entertainment industry in a variety of roles at the ABC, SBS and Screen NSW including production assistant, team coordinator, business affairs to currently working as a senior executive assistant at the ABC.

Career highlights include producing female lead creative projects for her production company Illyria Productions, graduating with a Masters of Business Management exploring the challenges of leadership within the media industry in her thesis and spending two years working at the National Theatre and the Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London.