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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this website contains names, images, and voices of deceased persons.

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Caroline Mary Jones (1938–2022)

by Karl Quinn and Angus Dalton

from Sydney Morning Herald

Veteran ABC journalist Caroline Jones AO has died aged 84.

Jones joined the ABC in 1963 and went on to host Four Corners. She was the first presenter for the ABC’s profile series Australian Story and worked on the program from the show’s beginning in 1996 to her retirement in 2016.

“I go by my own choice, but always with a great emotional attachment to the ABC and Australian Story. I’ll always be a devoted ABC person,” she told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age at the time.

“It’s a question of timing,” the then 78-year-old added. “As you get older, you get a sense of all the other things there are to do, and you realise that the time to do them isn’t endless.”

Australian Story executive producer Caitlin Shea confirmed Jones’ death in a statement, saying the journalist had passed away this week after a fall in her Sydney home.

Shea said Jones was remembered for her “grace, cheer and utter professionalism” and called her a “pioneer in journalism”.

Jones was the first female reporter on Australia’s first national current affairs program, This Day Tonight, in 1968.

For eight years she presented the interview-based The Search For Meaning on Radio National. The conversations from that program were collected in four books released between 1989 and 1995.

In 1988, Jones was made an officer of the Order of Australia and in 2013, she received a Walkley Award for Outstanding Contribution to Journalism.

The ABC’s managing director David Anderson said in a statement that Jones “was an important voice for many Australians”. In 2018, the ABC established an ABC News scholarship in Jones’ name that provides funds and training for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander journalists.

Twitter tributes have come in from the Walkley Foundation and journalists Margaret Simons, Mike Carlton, Shona Martyn, Lisa Wilkinson and ABC journalist turned independent candidate for Goldstein, Zoe Daniel.

Former ABC director of news Gaven Morris said on Twitter that Jones’ death was “profoundly sad news”.

“I had the immense privilege of spending precious time with her as she supported young journalists,” Morris wrote on Twitter.

When farewelling Jones from her position at the broadcaster in 2016, Morris said she was “a legend of Australian journalism, a trailblazer, an inspiration and a role model for so many women in the media. She is also a fine journalist and broadcaster, one of Australia’s best communicators and a terrific human being.”

Jones never featured in her own episode of the program she defined for decades.

“We just wish she would have let us tell her Australian story,” wrote Shea. “She was truly deserving of it.”

Original publication

Other Obituaries for Caroline Mary Jones

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Citation details

Karl Quinn and Angus Dalton, 'Jones, Caroline Mary (1938–2022)', Obituaries Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/jones-caroline-mary-32532/text40372, accessed 5 December 2024.

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