Paul Kennedy (born 13 August 1975) is an Australian journalist, television presenter, author and former

Australian rules footballer Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

.McMahon, Neil (27 June 2013
A healthy and balanced breakfast
''

The Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...

'', Nine Entertainment Co. Retrieved 17 April 2019.

Media career

Kennedy's journalism career began in 1994 when he worked as a

copy boy A copy boy is a typically young and junior worker on a newspaper. The job involves taking typed stories from one section of a newspaper to another. According to Bruce Guthrie, the former editor-in-chief of the '' Herald Sun'' who began work ther ...

for ''

The Herald and Weekly Times The Herald and Weekly Times Pty Ltd (HWT) is a newspaper publishing company based in Melbourne, Australia. It is owned and operated by News Pty Ltd, which as News Ltd, purchased the HWT in 1987. Newspapers The HWT's newspaper interests date ba ...

'', before moving on to become a news reporter for Network Ten and the Nine Network. Paul is best known for being a

sports presenter In sports broadcasting, a sports commentator (also known as sports announcer or sportscaster) provides a real-time commentary of a game or event, usually during a live broadcast, traditionally delivered in the historical present tense. Radio was ...

ABC Television ABC Television most commonly refers to: *ABC Television Network of the American Broadcasting Company, United States, or *ABC Television (Australian TV network), a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia ABC Television or ABC ...

's long-running breakfast program ''

News Breakfast ''News Breakfast'' is an Australian news breakfast television program. It is broadcast on ABC TV and ABC News channel from 6:00 am to 9:00 am AEST/AEDT on weekdays and is hosted by Michael Rowland and Lisa Millar. The program is also streame ...

'', having been with the program since its inception in 2008 until 2021. In July 2021, Kennedy resigned from ''

'' to become a senior sports reporter across all

ABC News ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include Breakfast television, morning ...

programs and platforms; Tony Armstrong replaced him.

Australian rules football

Kennedy has been actively involved in Australian rules football having played with the

Dandenong Stingrays The Dandenong Southern Stingrays are an Australian rules football team in the NAB League, the Victorian statewide under-18s competition. 1992 saw the birth of the Southern Stingrays, developed under the leadership of Steve Kennedy (Regional M ...

in the

TAC Cup The NAB League Boys (also referred to as simply the NAB League and formerly known as the TAC Cup) is an under-19 Australian rules football representative competition held in Australia. It is based on geographic regions throughout country Vict ...

, Frankston Dolphins in Victoria's VFL and with

Fitzroy Lions The Fitzroy Football Club is an Australian rules football club currently competing in the Victorian Amateur Football Association (VAFA). Formed in 1883 to represent the inner-Melbourne municipality of Fitzroy, the club was a member of the V ...

reserve grade in the

AFL AFL may refer to: Sports * American Football League (AFL), a name shared by several separate and unrelated professional American football leagues: ** American Football League (1926) (a.k.a. "AFL I"), first rival of the National Football Leagu ...

.Snow, Troy (10 November 2011
Meet Paul Kennedy

Sandringham Football Club The Sandringham Football Club, nicknamed The Zebras, is an Australian rules football club based in Melbourne which was formed in 1929 and plays in the Victorian Football League (VFL) which was formerly called the Victorian Football Association ...

. Retrieved 17 April 2019. Kennedy has also played with the Morningside and

Mount Gravatt Football Club Mount Gravatt Australian Football Club, is a Brisbane based club which competed in the North East Australian Football League competition from 2011–2013 and as of 2014 is a member club of the Queensland Australian Football League., formed in 19 ...

s in the

QAFL The Queensland Australian Football League (QAFL) is an Australian rules football competition organised by the AFL Queensland, contested by clubs from South East Queensland. Previously known as the Queensland Football League (QFL), Queensland ...

and was as a

player-coach A player-coach (also playing coach, captain-coach, or player-manager) is a member of a sports team who simultaneously holds both playing and coaching duties. A player-coach may be a head coach or an assistant coach. They may make changes to the sq ...

Seaford Football Club The Seaford Football Netball Club, nicknamed the ''Tigers'', is an Australian rules football and netball club based in the south eastern region of Australia, first organised in late 1921. Formation meetings were held at Armstrong's Grocery St ...

. His time at Seaford inspired Kennedy to write and direct a short film called ''Drug Game'', which explored drug-related issues that players and club officials had been faced with. The film was a finalist at the Melbourne International Film Festival, and Kennedy has since been credited with helping rebuild Seaford as a formidable club by creating a family friendly atmosphere at the club when he took over as senior coach in 2003. Kennedy has also been a coach at

and with the

Mornington Peninsula Nepean Football League The Mornington Peninsula Nepean Football League (abbreviated "MPNFL") is an Australian rules football competition, governed by the AFL South East. The MPNFL contains teams near the south eastern region of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. At the ...

. He now coaches Carrum Lions and his son Gus Kennedy In 2020, at th
Frankston Football Club
s season launch, President Peter Geddes announced two new No.1 ticket holders were announced, Paul Kennedy from ABC News Breakfast and Sharni Layton from Fox Footy.

Books

In 2010, Kennedy co-authored ''Hell on the Way to Heaven'' with Chrissie Foster which investigated cover-ups by the Catholic Church of

child sexual abuse Child sexual abuse (CSA), also called child molestation, is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include engaging in sexual activities with a child (whet ...

, following the abuse of Anthony and Chrissie Foster's two daughters by a

Catholic priest The priesthood is the office of the ministers of religion, who have been commissioned ("ordained") with the Holy orders of the Catholic Church. Technically, bishops are a priestly order as well; however, in layman's terms ''priest'' refers only ...

. In 2017, Kennedy said co-writing ''Hell on the Way to Heaven'' was his career highlight, as he considers the book to be the most important piece of journalism that he has undertaken in his career and was not expecting to do anything of more importance. Kennedy wrote ''High Stakes: The Rise of the Waterhouse Dynasty'' in 2014, which explored the story of the Waterhouse family, who are widely regarded as Australia's best known horse racing family. In 2016, Kennedy wrote ''Fifteen Young Men: Australia's Untold Football Tragedy'', which detailed the deaths of 15 men, including 14 local footballers, who were killed during a storm in 1892 when their boat capsized off

Mornington Peninsula The Mornington Peninsula is a peninsula located south of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is surrounded by Port Phillip to the west, Western Port to the east and Bass Strait to the south, and is connected to the mainland in the north. Geo ...

while returning from

Mordialloc Mordialloc is a beachside suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 24 km south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Kingston local government area. Mordialloc recorded a population of 8,886 at the . ...

.Kennedy, Paul (2016), ''Fifteen Young Men: Australia's Untold Football Tragedy'',

Random House Australia Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

, . Retrieved 17 April 2019. In 2021, he released ''Funkytown'' an autobiography covering his teenage years, and detailing his Australian Rules football ambitions, occasional misogyny, and his excessive drinking.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kennedy, Paul Living people Australian journalists Australian television presenters Frankston Football Club players Sandringham Football Club coaches 1975 births