ABC appoints head of news reporting team

ABC has appointed Walkley Award-winning journalist Neil Mercer as the new Editor of its National Reporting Team.

He replaces Jo Puccini who was appointed Executive Producer of 7.30 in March.

Mercer has been a journalist for more than 40 years. Most recently he was an investigative reporter for TEN’s crime series, Wanted.

In 1972 he joined The West Australian as a cadet. He has been a researcher and producer for 60 Minutes covering such stories as police corruption and the infamous Fine Cotton horse racing ring-in. In 1988 he joined Four Corners, winning a Walkley for his profile of convicted Whiskey Au Go Go killer James Finch. He has also worked on Seven’s Witness.

In 2012 at the SMH he revealed the illegal bugging of more than a hundred NSW Police which resulted in an inquiry by the NSW Ombudsman and in 1997 Mercer wrote Fate, on the murders by Ivan Milat.

He begins later this month.