HerCanberra welcomes Emma Macdonald

Posted on 17 August, 2016

HerCanberra is proud to welcome the talented Emma Macdonald to the team.

If you’d have told me five years ago that I’d be welcoming a Walkley Award winning journalist to the HerCanberra Team, I would have said, ‘you’re crazy’. After all. this website started with the spark of an idea and a computer in our spare room. But that’s exactly what’s about to happen, and we couldn’t be more excited for what it means for us and for HerCanberra readers!

A distinguished career

For more than 20 years Emma Macdonald has been on the frontline of reporting about Canberra, its politics and its people. Yes, she started young! She won her first Walkley with the Australian Financial Review before she had even graduated from university.

Her desire to cover issues affecting her hometown saw Emma move to The Canberra Times where she covered just about every topic under the sun with a focus on education.

She has spent 13 years in the Parliamentary Press Gallery where she was Canberra Times Bureau chief.  She has won many awards; notably two Walkleys, a Walkley national finalist, the John Douglas Pringle British Prize for Journalism and a Vincent Fairfax Ethics in Leadership Fellowship. She’s been highly commended in the Paul Lyneham Political Journalism Award, and is a Distinguished Alumni of the University of Canberra (that makes two of us on the team — we’re collecting them…)

Emma is well-known for her hard news sense, breaking open stories such as Canberra’s Mr Fluffy asbestos legacy, and the ‘autism cage ‘scandal; but she is equally known for her compassionate and engaging storytelling. In recent years Emma has been commentating on local events on television and radio.

More than words

Those who know Emma well are aware of her passions outside politics and current affairs. She was an international fashion model as a teenager and has always had an eye for a well-cut jacket and an obsession for denim. 

She loves food and travel, as her Instagram feed will attest. When not posting food or interior inspo, Emma has her focus very much on her two children, Thomas and Imogen. She has co-founded international maternal health charity Send Hope Not Flowers (hear from Emma herself about that journey in our podcast, The Moment) and is convenor of Women in Media Canberra. 

She is a wonderful human, and I can’t wait for her to take up her desk as Associate Editor at the end of the month. As HerCanberra continues to grow and introduce new products, we are grateful for her experience, passion and enthusiasm. We look forward to an exciting new era of HerCanberra.

Welcome, Emma!