Tony Jones (news journalist)

Tony Jones
Born	Anthony William Jones 13 November 1956
Nationality	Australian
Education	Newington College St Paul's College, University of Sydney
Occupation	Television presenter and journalist
Employer	Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Known for	Dateline, Q&A
Spouse(s)	Sarah Ferguson (1993–present)

Anthony William Jones is an Australian television news and political journalist, and television presenter better known as Tony Jones.

Early life

Jones attended Newington College (1970–74) and the University of Sydney as a resident of St Paul's College, where he studied English and anthropology.

Career

Jones joined the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as a radio current affairs cadet working on the AM, PM and The World Today programs. In 1985, he joined the Four Corners program as a reporter. In 1986, he went to the Dateline program on SBS. He returned to the ABC in 1987, reporting for Four Corners.

In 1990, Jones went to London as the ABC's current affairs correspondent. He covered the collapse of the USSR in Eastern Europe, the Gulf War, the war in the former Yugoslavia, the fall of Kabul to the Mujahadin and the collapse of apartheid. Jones returned to Australia in 1993 as Executive Producer of the Foreign Correspondent program. From 1994 to 1996, he was the ABC's correspondent in Washington D.C., before returning to Foreign Correspondent in 1997. He also covered the war crimes in Bosnia. In mid-1998 he returned to Four Corners.

Jones has hosted ABC TV's Lateline news and current affairs program since 1999. In 2011, he hosts the show on Wednesday and Thursday nights. He also hosts the ABC's Q&A political panel discussion show.

Tony Jones is one of Australia's most well known journalists, winning four awards including four of Australia's leading journalism awards, the Walkleys. Crikey awarded him "Outstanding Media Practitioner of the Year" in 2005 for "ferocious intelligence, polite calmness, [being a] dogged interrogator, deep political instincts, juggling the running agenda, [and having] a great sense of context." Crikey also put much of the success of Lateline to Jones, stating, "Lateline without Jones is a perfectly adequate late night news review; with Jones it is a world-class piece of television."

In 2006, Jones and Lateline embarked on a series of stories that provided the catalyst for the Northern Territory Intervention. Tony Jones highlights these stories as being the ones he is most proud of.

On the high rating Q&A program, Jones regularly hosts national figures from politics, culture and the arts to discuss issues on the national agenda and face questions from a selected audience. Jones hosted the major party leaders during the 2010 Australian Federal Election. In 2010 on the Q&A program with Jones as host, former Taliban supporter David Hicks submitted an antagonistic question to former Prime Minister John Howard. In the same program, Jones apologised to Howard after a man threw his shoes at him in protest against the Iraq War. In March 2011 on Q&A, the ABC sought out a question for Prime Minister Julia Gillard from political activist Julian Assange in which Assange queried if Gillard should be tried for "treason". Jones asked Prime Minister Gillard if she had got "carried away" in making an emotional address to the US Congress in which she praised the United States. Jones said "Briefly, when I was a small boy my first impression of America was of the Vietnam War and the fact that young Australians were being conscripted to go and fight in this war and there were demonstrations in streets and the notion of all the way with LBJ and at that time Labor figures were leading the demonstrations. There's no sort of reflection of any of that Labor tradition in your speech—a sort of cynicism about American power."

Personal life

Jones is married to fellow ABC journalist Sarah Ferguson. They met in Paris when Jones engaged Ferguson as a researcher while he was the ABC's UK correspondent. They married in 1993 and have two children. Jones has another child from a previous relationship.

Awards

• 1987 Walkley Award for Best Television Current Affairs Report, for his story Horses for Courses, which broadcast on the ABC.
• 1991 Walkley Award for Best Coverage of a Current Story (Television), joint winner with Kerry O'Brien and Dugald Maudsley.
• 2004 Walkley Award for Broadcast Interviewing, for his interviews on Lateline.
• 2007 Walkley Award for Broadcast Interviewing, for his interviews on Lateline.

Media offices
Preceded by Maxine McKew	Lateline Presenter (Wednesday & Thursday) 1999 – present	Succeeded by Incumbent
Preceded by Originator	Q&A Presenter 22 May 2008 – present	Succeeded by Incumbent

External links

• Lateline official website