After nine years and five hundred interviews, I will be leaving One Plus One - and the ABC - in mid September 2019.
I'd like to say that my mainstream journalism career as a reporter, foreign correspondent and presenter has been a complete privilege. One Plus One is my baby and you don't leave something you've created without a heavy heart. This was my decision alone.
I'm leaving because I need challenge. After years of learning from my interviewees, inspiring people who have created vibrant lives from the realities life deals, I too, want to be a little bit brave. I'll be working on my own projects, collaborations and will continue to leading tours with Renaissance Tours and the Art Gallery Society of NSW.
I'm happy to say that One Plus One will continue without me, initially with guest presenters. I will be curating a collection of my favourite interviews from over the years and for my final program (date TBC) - you asked for it - I will be the interviewee!
Much more to come ... xx
(Thanks to my colleague Marton Dobras for the photo)
My boss, Tim Ayliffe, Managing Editor at ABC News awarded me the ABC medallion for 25 years of service. I was so thrilled to receive this acknowledgement in front of my colleagues. I didn't think anyone in the organisation remembered!
The ABC's Chief International Correspondent Philip Williams sent this beautiful tribute:
Jane is not only a stellar foreign correspondent but she has created her own 'second life' as a fantastic interviewer. She has always determined her own path; never a follower but a leader and has delivered her work with style, wit and grace. Congratulations for 25 years of service to the ABC, but more importantly, to our 'shareholders'.
We and they are grateful!
I'm lucky, that as a journalist, I was able to have multiple 'careers' at the ABC. However my thanks goes to you, the audience (our 'shareholders') for your support and gratitude over the years. It means everything to me.
Here's an article I did for the July 2018 edition of Look Magazine, Art Gallery Society of NSW. Front photo by Michael Cox. Chinese countryside photo by me. Edited by John Saxby.
This morning I reading two profile pieces which held my attention and moved me profoundly. One was an appreciation of Professor Stephen Hawking, the physicist who died this past week (Cerebral Celebrity, The Australian by Dennis Overbye - paywalled).
The other article was a profile (by Jane Cadzow) of journalist and author Cynthia Banham. Her new book, A Certain Light (which I haven't read), in part details the terrible 2007 plane crash in Indonesia in which she nearly died. More importantly, it details her recovery from severe injuries including the amputation of her legs while she spent three months in a Perth burns unit.
I did not have the opportunity to interview Stephen Hawking. I would like to interview Cynthia, although I'm not sure at the time of me writing whether she's agreeable. I can imagine how difficult it would be to talk about her experiences, so the profile may be the closest I get to her.
What moved me about the stories was a sense of wonder about survival and and an acknowledgement that life doesn't always go the way you want it to.
Earlier this week, I read how Hawking lost his ability to speak more than three decades ago after a tracheotomy. This was related to complications in his condition, motor neurone disease, which he was diagnosed with at the age of 21. He told the BBC that after the operation he had considered committing suicide by not breathing, but he said:
the reflex to breathe was too strong.
Cynthia Banham says in the Sydney Morning Herald profile that she often imagines seeing the two Australians sitting on either side of her, who perished in the crash. They were journalist Morgan Mellish and diplomat Liz O'Neill.
It's like they occupy those places on either side of me permanently now." She keeps in touch with O'Neill's husband and daughter. She often imagines she sees Mellish's face in the street.
And then this about the nature of tragedy.
Actually there is tragedy everywhere you look...you can find it very easily in certain countries overseas but even when you look in your own very privileged country, it is there in every family. Whether it's cancer or mental illness or misfortune of some kind. Losing a child. Whatever. It's everywhere. And actually that's the way life is.
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