Lisa Wilkinson

Wilkinson was born in Wollongong,[4] but grew up in Campbelltown, in Sydney's Western Suburbs and attended Campbelltown High School (now Campbelltown Performing Arts High School).[5] She began her career working for the magazine Dolly.[6] At age 21,[6] she was offered the job as its editor.[5] During her time there she became known for discovering young female talent, including a then-unknown Nicole Kidman.[7]

After tripling the magazine's circulation, she was personally approached by Kerry Packer to become editor of Australian Consolidated Press women's lifestyle magazine, Cleo.[8] One of her first acts was to remove the magazine's infamous male centrefold.[9] During her time as editor, she mentored up and coming journalists such as Mia Freedman and Deborah Thomas.[10][11] Over ten years Wilkinson became the title's longest-serving editor, and during her tenure there was unprecedented circulation growth for the magazine. Wilkinson went on to become Cleo's International Editor-in-Chief as it opened title in New Zealand and Asia.[12]

From 1999 to 2007, Wilkinson was Editor-At-Large of The Australian Women's Weekly.[13]

In August 2015 Wilkinson was asked by Arianna Huffington to become the Australian Editor-at-large of The Huffington Post.[14][15] A role she held until 2018.[16]

Her television career began in the late 1990s when she became a regular panelist on Network Ten and Foxtel's Beauty and the Beast. During the 2000 Summer Olympics, she (along with Duncan Armstrong) co-hosted The Morning Shift on the Seven Network.[17]

In April 2005, Wilkinson began hosting Weekend Sunrise on the Seven Network with Chris Reason, and later with Andrew O'Keefe.[18]

On 10 May 2007, it was confirmed that Wilkinson was to co-host Today on the Nine Network after Jessica Rowe left the network and she began appearing on Today on 28 May 2007.[19] This was Stefanovic's fifth female co-host in just over two years.[20] In 2016, the duo took the show to number one in the breakfast TV wars for the first time in 12 years.[21] On 16 October 2017, Wilkinson resigned from the Nine Network and Today due to a contract dispute with nine management over the significant gender pay gap that existed between her and long-time cohost Karl Stefanovic.[22] after ten years with the network, effective immediately.[23] Wilkinson herself announced she was leaving on Twitter and then just over an hour later announced on Twitter that she was joining Channel Ten.[24]

In her 2021 memoir, It Wasn't Meant to Be Like This, Wilkinson revealed that she had been sacked over her request for a fairer pay structure at the Network.[25]

In 2018, she joined The Project, a nightly TV current affairs programme on Network 10.[26] On November 20, 2022 Wilkinson "stepped down from her role on The Project after a controversial year on the program."[27][28][29]

From 2008 to 2016, Wilkinson was the co-host of the Nine Network's Carols by Candlelight, replacing long time host Ray Martin when Martin semi-retired. Wilkinson's co-host from 2008 until 2012 was Karl Stefanovic, and in 2013 she was joined by David Campbell.[30][31] She was replaced by Sonia Kruger in 2017 after she left the Nine Network.[32]

In 2013, Wilkinson gave the Andrew Olle Memorial Lecture on the treatment of women in and by the media.[33] She was the first female journalist to give the speech since Jana Wendt in 1997.[34]

In 2017, Wilkinson was remarked on by The Daily Mail for wearing on air a blouse she had worn four months before.[35] Her cohost, Karl Stefanovic, had previously worn the same suit every day for a year without attracting notice.[35] Wilkinson posted a tweet criticizing the sexism and wore the blouse on air the next day, sardonically writing "my greatest legacy to the annals of female news broadcasting history will likely be that I dared to wear the same outfit two days in a row on national TV".[35][36] Other male and female Today Show hosts also wore the blouse on air in following days.[35][37]

In October 2021, Wilkinson was named a two-time finalist in the Walkley Awards for her ground-breaking interview with political staffer Brittany Higgins[38] in which she alleged being raped on Federal Government Minister Linda Reynold's office couch in 2019.[39] That story led to a full cultural review by Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Kate Jenkins, into the workplace treatment of women in Parliament House.[40]