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TVT Vault: Caroline Jones: “Everyone loves a Story.”

"I thought I had ink in my veins," Caroline Jones reflected in 2015 when she spoke to TV Tonight.

In 2015 Caroline Jones spoke to TV Tonight about Australian Story and how she started in journalism.

Caroline Jones recalls a recent, happenstance meeting at the Sydney Writers’ Festival with none other than Jana Wendt. For any onlooker, it must have been a surreal moment, as two iconic female television journalists came face to face.

“This beautiful woman came to stand beside me and there she was. We may have met before, but not to have a conversation as we did that day. And of course, we remarked that my declining to join 60 Minutes in a way opened the door for her to say yes a little later,” Jones says.

Decades earlier, Gerald Stone had invited Jones to leave the ABC to become the first female presenter for 60 Minutes.

“A question in the middle of the night in a hotel room in New York, when I was on a United States broadcasting study tour. It was a phone call at 1:30 a.m.” she recalls.

“I said ‘I will think about it, thank you very much.’ But at that time I was with Four Corners. I suppose I was also doing ABC Current Affairs radio every morning. I thought, ‘Well this is pretty good, I think I better stay.’ Isn’t it interesting? A lot of the crossroads that your life presents could’ve been very different. ”

Indeed. Over her 52 year career, Jones has never worked with any other broadcaster other than the ABC. She was the first woman reporter on This Day Tonight, from 1968-72, and the first woman to anchor Four Corners, from 1972-81. She has been with Australian Story for all of its 19 years -remarkably, still a ratings drawcard every Monday night. Jones first joined ABC at 26 years of age in Canberra, in 1963.

“I have always worked with the ABC on and off over all these years. What a privilege,” she declares.

“My generation didn’t have as an ideal, the pursuit of variety and constant change which I think is prevalent today. It was more about finding a career and an opportunity if it opens up before you and do your best to stay there.”

Jones grew up in a household of women, growing up in Murrurundi, NSW while her father was off to war.

“My grandfather Ashley Pountney, the son of a convict made good in Australia, was the editor of some of the first newspapers in north-west New South Wales. So I thought I had ink in my veins and I did have a sense that I would love to be in journalism, but it would take a while to get there.

“Graham Chisholm was the one who gave me my first job at the ABC. Bruce Buchanan invited me to This Day Tonight and Alan Martin invited me to Four Corners.

Her first assignment was to interview the wife of a new American ambassador with an old Stellavox recorder, a task she concedes she was terrible at. But working within ABC Canberra armed her with plenty of skills for life.

“When you start in a regional centre I think it puts you at a great advantage because you have to do a bit of everything. You’re typing scripts, you are probably doing some makeup for the weatherman, you’re certainly making cups of tea for the politicians who’ve come over from Parliament House to be interviewed by somebody much more important than you. And you are given your first chance of interviewing on radio and television,” she says.

“But I think the breadth of experience that you can gain, probably still today in a regional centre, is of great benefit.”

Australian Story, was developed partially from her own radio programme, and has become a beacon of success for the ABC.

“Deb Fleming, the executive producer of Australian Story, says that the two inspirations for Australian Story which began in 1996 that wonderful documentary program of A Big Country and the radio program that I had conducted on ABC Radio National for eight years, The Search for Meaning, which was storytelling by a great variety of the country men and women from across the country.”

The show is renowned for profiling individuals, both famous and non-famous, through their own words. Frequently the subjects are about rising above adversity, regularly moving a fervent audience.

“Our feedback from the public is viewers appreciate having the subject tell his or her own story rather than having a reporter mediating it. I think Deb Fleming’s judgment was very wise in that regard. So we have no narration only by the subject or those others associated with the story and it’s kind of a relief,” says Jones.

With such acclaim, Australian Story is also well-regarded by profile Australians looking to make a statement, or even making news. Jones recalls those featuring Hazel Hawke.

“She was generous enough when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease to agree to do a program with us. How generous. At that time when we were being warned of what has now become something of an epidemic of dementia population,” she continues.

“It was illuminating a matter of great public interest with a particular moving personal story. And that’s good work.”

Originally published July 27, 2015.

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