Sally Sara

Last updated

Sally Sara
Born
Sally Jane Sara

1970or1971(age 52–53)
South Australia, Australia
EducationKadina Memorial High School
Alma mater University of Adelaide
Occupation(s)Journalist, television presenter
Employer Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Sally Jane Sara AM (born 1970or1971) is an Australian journalist, TV presenter, author, and playwright. She has worked for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for many years, including stints as foreign correspondent in Africa, South Asia, and Afghanistan. In 2025 she will host ABC Radio National Breakfast.

Contents

Early life and education

Sally Jane Sara [1] was born in 1970or1971 in South Australia. She grew up in Port Broughton, [2] on the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia. Her grandmother was a singer, and acted in local plays and school productions, and her mother also acted in amateur productions. Her mother would take her to the city (Adelaide) to see plays while her father took her brothers camping. She developed a love of theatre, and wanted to be a playwright when she was young. [3] Aged eight, she was the first girl to play for the Port Broughton Football Club. [4]

She went to school in Kadina. [5]

Sara is a graduate of the University of Adelaide, staying in the residential college of St Mark's in North Adelaide from 1988 until 1990. [6] She did a course in screenwriting as a component of her course. [3]

Career

In the year after graduation, Sara wrote to the producers of the long-running TV series A Country Practice , asking for an opportunity to do some writing for the show, and was able to write a trial script in their Sydney writing room. [3]

Sara's career began with Outback Radio 2WEB in Bourke, New South Wales. In 1992 she joined the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as a rural reporter, with her first posting at Renmark, South Australia. [7] She also worked in Alice Springs, Adelaide, Melbourne, and Canberra. [3]

Sara was the ABC's Africa correspondent from 2000 [3] to 2005, the first woman to hold this post. She has also reported from Jakarta, the Middle East and London during the 2005 London Bombings. In February 2006, Sara became the presenter of the ABC's Landline. [8]

In November 2008 she took up the post as the ABC's South Asia correspondent based in New Delhi, India. [9]

From February to December 2011, Sara was based in Kabul as the ABC's Afghanistan correspondent, which included numerous assignments in the field reporting on the war from both the Afghan and NATO sides of the conflict. Sara spent one year covering the war in Afghanistan. She reported from the frontline, entrenched with coalition forces. Sara covered terrorist attacks and political unrest, and followed the rebuilding of the country. [10] She worked largely on her own while there. [3] Despite many restrictions on the activities of women in Afghanistan, Sara said she never faced a situation where she was denied interviews with officials or religious leaders. She was permitted entrance to the private homes of women – forbidden to male reporters – which allowed her more access in her role as a foreign correspondent. [11] In a society segregated by gender, Sara said that being a female reporter allowed her "to have access to women to be able to tell their stories – and that's really important. In a place like Afghanistan women and children make up almost three quarters of the population so it's crucial that their voices are heard." After almost twelve years as a foreign correspondent, [11] she returned to Australia from Afghanistan to become the ABC's regional and rural affairs correspondent. [10]

In August 2013, Sara joined the long-running ABC program, Foreign Correspondent . [12] [13]

In October 2016, the ABC announced that Sara was returning to Africa as the broadcaster's Africa correspondent, based in Nairobi, Kenya. [14]

She has reported from more than 40 countries, [15] including Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. [16]

From 2020 until the end of 2024 she presented The World Today, a weekday radio current affairs program on ABC Radio. [17] [15]

In November 2024 it was announced that Sara would be taking over from Patricia Karvelas as host of RN Breakfast . She will present Summer Breakfast from 16 December 2024 until 3 January 2025, with the full new line-up starting on 20 January. Starting at the earlier timeslot of 5:30am AEDT, Sara will be joined by political correspondent Melissa Clarke, business correspondent Peter Ryan, and news presenter Luke Siddham Dundon. [15]

Other activities

Sara has written for the Boston Globe and The New York Times . [2]

She wrote a chapter in the book South Africa, Lesotho & Swaziland (2004) by Mary Fitzpatrick. [18] She also contributed a chapter in Travellers' Tales Stories from ABC TV's Foreign Correspondents, published in 2004. [19]

Sara is the author of the book Gogo Mama, which tells the diverse stories of 12 women from different African countries. [20]

In February 2013, Sara released the first of a 12-part online series called Mama Asia on the ABC website, [21] inspired by Gogo Mama. She spent a week with most of the women featured in the project, getting to know them and their families. It developed into a television series so that it could include photography and audio. It is a long-form journalism series. [22] Sara interviewed an Afghan helicopter pilot, Latifa Nabizada; a pioneering Thai Buddhist monk, Bhikkhuni Dhammananda; a South Korean leprosy sufferer; a sheep shearer from beyond the Gobi Desert; a matriarch from the slums of Mumbai; a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bomb; Filipina human rights activist and rape survivor Hilda Narciso; and the survivor of an acid attack in Bangladesh. The women's stories were published each month beginning from February 2013 to December 2013. [21]

In 2021 Sara's first play, Stop Girl, premiered at the Belvoir Street Theatre in Sydney. It ran from 20 March to 25 April 2021, to good reviews, [23] after five years in the writing. The story begins in Kabul, where the lead character is a war correspondent, and moves to Sydney. In researching for the show, Sara interviewed all the real people who inspired the characters in her play, which, she said, gave greater depth to her writing. About the play, she said "The play wasn't so much therapy as a way of reclaiming the events, turning an awful experience into something positive". [3]

Recognition and awards

In September 2007, Sara [24] was awarded the Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship for human rights journalism, [9] that recognises women in journalism, and entails study overseas. [25] [2] She was a visiting fellow at the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. [9]

Sara was made a Member of the Order of Australia on 26 January 2011, "For service to journalism and to the community as a foreign correspondent raising awareness of international issues and as a reporter on rural Australia". [1]

Sara was recognised by St Mark's College as a Distinguished Collegian in 2012, [6] and in September of that year was named as an Ochberg Fellow at the Dart Centre at Columbia University in New York. [26] [27]

Sara has won many awards in her career, both domestic and international, starting with a few in her first job at Outback Radio 2WEB, [3] and including four UN Media Peace Awards (as of 2024). [2] She was named South Australian Young Journalist of the Year and Queensland Journalist of the Year. [12]

Sara won three awards in the Dalgety Award for Excellence in Rural Journalism in 1993, and won the John Douglas Pringle Award (aka British Prize for Journalism) in 1999. [28] [8] [9]

Sara has been a finalist in the Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism many times and in 2017 she won a Walkley for her report on famine in Somaliland. [29] She has also won a second Walkley, for radio reporting. [2]

In 2010, [30] her book Gogo Mama was nominated for the best-non fiction book in the Walkley Awards. [4] [2]

In March 2011, her story on the Pakistan floods was nominated for a Logie Award for Most Outstanding News Coverage. [31] In April 2011, Sara was awarded the Silver Medal at the New York Festivals Television and Film Awards Gala at the NAB Show in Las Vegas for her story "Standing on the Sky". [32]

In October 2016, Sara was named as a finalist for the 6th AACTA Awards for her story on #BlackLivesMatter. [33]

She has also been nominated twice for the Graham Perkin Award. [34]

Personal life

Sara is a state Masters Athletics champion, and won a silver medal at the Australian Masters Athletics Championships in 2007. [9]

Sara has a younger brother, Tyson, a defence industry strategist who happened to be in Afghanistan at the same time she was there. [3]

To help her recover from the trauma of what she experienced while in Kandahar, Afghanistan, she consulted a psychologist specialising in trauma therapy for several years after her return. [3]

She speaks Zulu. She is a friend of journalist Leigh Sales. [3]

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References

  1. 1 2 "Sara, Sally Jane". Search Australian Honours. Australian Government. Retrieved 26 January 2011.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Sally Sara". ABC News. 13 October 2024. Retrieved 1 November 2024.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Elliott, Tim (5 March 2021). "ABC reporter Sally Sara on writing a play to recover from foreign correspondent trauma". The Sydney Morning Herald . Archived from the original on 23 July 2024. Retrieved 1 November 2024. In 1991, when she was 20,...
  4. 1 2 "Adelaide UNIFEM Breakfast: Hosted by Senator the Hon Penny Wong with guest speaker Sally Sara, ABC award winning foreign correspondent". Community and Public Sector Union. Archived from the original on 29 January 2011.
  5. ↑ "Port Broughton's own Sally Sara". ABC North and West. 19 December 2018. Retrieved 2 November 2024– via Facebook. ABC's Sally Sara grew up in Port Broughton and went to school in Kadina.
  6. 1 2 "Celebrating 30 years of women at St Mark's" (PDF). p. 1,6. Archived (PDF) from the original on 15 March 2019. Retrieved 1 November 2024. Ms Sally Sara AM (Alumnae 1988 - 90)... On behalf of the College Council, the Chairman formally announced the College Council's decision to elect Ms Sally Sara as a Distinguished Collegian.
  7. ↑ "Sally Sara". Australian Broadcasting Corporation . 25 July 2007. Archived from the original on 22 September 2011.
  8. 1 2 "Sally Sara, Presenter". Landline . Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 20 May 2007.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 "Sally Sara". ABC. 4 April 2007. Archived from the original on 23 July 2024. Retrieved 2 November 2024.
  10. 1 2 Sara, Sally (3 December 2011). "Thoughts of Afghanistan: Sally Sara says goodbye". abc.net.au. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 30 January 2021.
  11. 1 2 "Sally Sara: Woman of The World". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 7 March 2012. Archived from the original on 4 February 2021. Retrieved 30 January 2021.
  12. 1 2 Knox, David (23 August 2013). "Sally Sara joins Foreign Correspondent". TV Tonight . Archived from the original on 19 June 2017. Retrieved 2 November 2024.
  13. ↑ Sally Sara on Twitter Archived 16 August 2013 at the Wayback Machine or 'hijacked'
  14. ↑ "Sally Sara named ABC News Africa correspondent". tv.press.abc.net.au. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 1 November 2016. Retrieved 30 January 2021.
  15. 1 2 3 "Sally Sara to replace Patricia Karvelas as host of ABC Radio National Breakfast in 2025". ABC News . 1 November 2024. Archived from the original on 14 December 2024. Retrieved 1 November 2024.
  16. ↑ "Sally Sara". Radio National. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 8 February 2013. Retrieved 30 January 2021.
  17. ↑ "The World Today". tv.press.abc.net.au. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 30 July 2021. Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  18. ↑ Mary Fitzpatrick; Sally Sara (2004). "Culture". South Africa Lesotho & Swaziland. Lonely Planet. pp. 45–53. ISBN   1-74104-162-7.
  19. ↑ Travellers' Tales Stories from ABC TV's Foreign Correspondent (Paperback). Sydney, N.S.W.: ABC Books for the Australian Broadcasting Corp. March 2004. ISBN   9780733313646 . Retrieved 30 January 2021.
  20. ↑ Sara, Sally (November 2017). Gogo Mama: A Journey into the Lives of Twelve African women (eBook). South Melbourne: Macmillan Australia. ISBN   9781742625935 . Retrieved 30 January 2021.
  21. 1 2 Sara, Sally. "Mama Asia". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 14 February 2013. Retrieved 30 January 2021.
  22. ↑ Leys, Nick (25 February 2013). "Ten Questions for Sally Sara" . The Australian. Nationwide News Pty Ltd. Retrieved 30 January 2021.
  23. ↑ "Stop Girl". Belvoir. Archived from the original on 30 July 2021. Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  24. ↑ Simpson, Peggy. "Australian Journalist Sally Sara Begins Year as the IWMF Elizabeth Neuffer Fellow". IWMF . Archived from the original on 22 December 2007.
  25. ↑ "FAQs: Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship". IWMF . 9 May 2003. Archived from the original on 9 September 2024. Retrieved 2 November 2024.
  26. ↑ "Sally Sara". Dart Center. Columbia University. 27 September 2013. Archived from the original on 21 January 2021. Retrieved 30 January 2021.
  27. ↑ "Sally Sara awarded prestigious reporting fellowship". RadioInfo Australia. 4 September 2012. Retrieved 2 November 2024.
  28. ↑ "Sally Sara, Foreign Correspondent". Australian Broadcasting Corporation . Archived from the original on 5 March 2005. Retrieved 20 May 2007.
  29. ↑ "Walkley Award nominees 2009 - Knowfirst". www.knowfirst.info. Archived from the original on 2 October 2011.
  30. ↑ "News". The Walkley Foundation. Archived from the original on 7 November 2010. Retrieved 8 November 2010.
  31. ↑ "2011 Logies nominations". tvweek.ninemsn.com.au. Archived from the original on 23 April 2011. Retrieved 13 April 2011.
  32. ↑ "South African Story 'Corrective Rape' to Receive Top Television Award, 12 April, at United Nations Public Information Department-New York Festivals Event". www.un.org. Archived from the original on 1 May 2011.
  33. ↑ "The 6th AACTA Awards Nominations". Guide. Special Broadcasting Service. 27 October 2016. Archived from the original on 28 October 2016.
  34. ↑ "Award-winning journalist Sally Sara to host Radio National Breakfast in 2025". Women's Agenda. 31 October 2024. Retrieved 1 November 2024.
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