Anthony William Jones (born 13 November 1955) is an Australian television news and political journalist, radio and television presenter and writer.

Early life

Jones attended

Newington College , motto_translation = To Faith Add Knowledge , location = Inner West and Lower North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales , country = Australia , coordinates = , pushpin_map = A ...

from 1970 to 1974 and the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...

as a resident of St Paul's College, where he studied English and, later, anthropology from 1975 to 1977.

Career

Jones started working for the

Australian Broadcasting Corporation The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-owne ...

(ABC) as a radio current affairs cadet working on the ''AM'', ''PM'' and ''The World Today'' programs. In 1985, he joined the ''

Four Corners The Four Corners is a region of the Southwestern United States consisting of the southwestern corner of Colorado, southeastern corner of Utah, northeastern corner of Arizona, and northwestern corner of New Mexico. The Four Corners area ...

'' program as a reporter. In 1986, he went to the ''

Dateline A dateline is a brief piece of text included in news articles that describes where and when the story was written or filed, though the date is often omitted. In the case of articles reprinted from wire services, the distributing organization i ...

'' program on SBS. He returned to the ABC in 1987, reporting for ''Four Corners''.Lateline: The Team
www.abc.net.au/lateline/about.htm In 1990, Jones went to London as the ABC's current affairs correspondent. He covered the collapse of the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

in Eastern Europe, the

Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, ...

, the war in the former Yugoslavia, the fall of Kabul to the Mujahadin and the collapse of

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

. He 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. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, before returning to ''Foreign Correspondent'' in 1997. He also covered the war crimes in Bosnia. In mid-1998 he returned to ''Four Corners''. Jones hosted ABC TV's ''

Lateline ''Lateline'' was an Australian television news program which ran from 1990 until 2017. The program initially aired weeknights on ABC TV. In later years it was also broadcast internationally throughout Asia and the Pacific on the Australia Plu ...

'' news and current affairs program from 1999. From 2011, he hosted the show on Wednesday and Thursday nights and also hosted the ABC's '' Q&A'' political panel discussion show. Jones is one of Australia's most well known journalists, winning awards including four of Australia's leading journalism awards, the Walkleys. ''

Crikey Crikey is an Australian electronic magazine comprising a website and email newsletter available to subscribers. Crikey was described by the former Federal Opposition Leader Mark Latham as the "most popular website in Parliament House" in '' T ...

'' awarded him "Outstanding Media Practitioner of the Year" in 2005 for "ferocious intelligence, polite calmness, eing adogged interrogator, deep political instincts, juggling the running agenda, nd havinga 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. He has highlighted these stories as being the ones he is most proud of. On the ''Q&A'' program, Jones regularly hosted national figures from politics, culture and the arts to discuss issues on the national agenda and face questions from a selected audience. He hosted the major party leaders during the

2010 Australian federal election The 2010 Australian federal election was held on Saturday, 21 August 2010 to elect members of the 43rd Parliament of Australia. The incumbent centre-left Australian Labor Party led by Prime Minister Julia Gillard won a second term against the Op ...

. In 2010 on the ''Q&A'' program with Jones as host, former

Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, jihadist, and Pasht ...

supporter

David Hicks David Matthew Hicks (born 7 August 1975) is an Australian who attended al-Qaeda's Al Farouq training camp in Afghanistan, and met with Osama bin Laden during 2001. He was then detained by the United States in Guantanamo Bay detention camp fro ...

submitted an antagonistic question to former Prime Minister

John Howard John Winston Howard (born 26 July 1939) is an Australian former politician who served as the 25th prime minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007, holding office as leader of the Liberal Party. His eleven-year tenure as prime minister is the ...

. In the same program, Jones apologised to Howard after a man threw his shoes at him in protest against the Iraq War. On 7 November 2019, the ABC announced that

Hamish McDonald Hamish McDonald is an Australian journalist and author of several books. He held a fellowship at the American think tank the Woodrow Wilson Centre in 2014. Career McDonald has worked as a journalist in mostly Asian countries like India, Japan, ...

would be joining the ABC as a senior presenter, replacing Jones at ''Q&A'' from 2020 while also presenting ABC Radio National's ''Breakfast'' and doing current affairs stories for ''Foreign Correspondent''.Hamish Macdonald to replace Tony Jones as host of ABC Q&A program
Natasha Johnson,

ABC News Online ABC News, or ABC News and Current Affairs, is a public news service produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Broadcasting within Australia and the rest of the world, the service covers both local and world affairs. The division of ...

, 2019-11-07 Jones hosted his last episode of ''Q&A'' on 9 December 2019. In 2019, Jones joined his wife, Sarah Ferguson, on the production of the ABC documentary series ''

Revelation In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing of some form of truth or knowledge through communication with a deity or other supernatural entity or entities. Background Inspiration – such as that bestowed by God on the ...

'' to write all three episodes.

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 was 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 The Walkley Award for Broadcast Interviewing was first presented in 1997, as one of the Walkley Awards. At some point it became the Walkley Award for Broadcast Presenting, until 2001. In 2009 the award category became Walkley Award for Broadcast ...

, for his interviews on ''Lateline''. *2007

, for his interviews on ''Lateline''. *2020 Walkley Documentary Award, shared with Sarah Ferguson and

Nial Fulton Nial William Fulton is an Australian film and television producer, director and writer. Focused on social justice issues, his works include investigative documentaries ''Revelation'', '' Hitting Home'', '' Borderland'', '' The Queen & Zak Gri ...

, for ''

''.

References

External links

''Lateline'' official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Tony ABC News (Australia) presenters Australian television journalists Walkley Award winners Living people People educated at Newington College Place of birth missing (living people) University of Sydney alumni 1955 births