Leigh Sales to take Lateline’s Friday chair

ABC correspondent Leigh Sales will become the regular Friday host of the ABC’s Lateline programme this month when Virginia Trioli moves to Melbourne to co-host the new ABC2 morning show, Breakfast.

Sales has been a regular fill-in presenter of ABC TV news and current affairs programs, including the World at Noon, the ABC 7PM TV news and Stateline.

She has also worked on assignment for Foreign Correspondent and The 7.30 Report.

More recently Sales has been the ABC’s National Security Correspondent and author of Detainee 002: The Case of David Hicks. In 2005, she won a prestigious Walkley Award for her coverage of the Guantanamo military commissions and was nominated again in 2006 for her reporting of Hurricane Katrina.

“Leigh has developed as a highly effective journalist, presenter and interviewer, and Lateline will be an even stronger program for her permanent presence there,” Director of News, John Cameron said.

Breakfast begins on ABC2 in October.

Press Release:
Leigh Sales will be taking over from Virginia Trioli as the regular Friday presenter of the ABC’s award-winning Lateline program on ABC1.

Sales will move from her National Security Correspondent role to join the Lateline team permanently later this month.

Sales, a former ABC Washington correspondent, will continue to present Lateline when Tony Jones is working on the Q&A program, and will report for Lateline when not presenting.

The ABC’s Director of News, John Cameron, said Sales had filled the National Security Correspondent role with distinction. He said her move from that role was a natural progression.

“Leigh has developed as a highly effective journalist, presenter and interviewer, and Lateline will be an even stronger program for her permanent presence there,” he said.

Trioli is about to move to Melbourne, where she will co-host the new ABC News Breakfast program on ABC2. That program is due to make its debut later next month.