After an impressive 27 years at the national broadcaster, veteran journalist Virginia Trioli is leaving the ABC.
She follows former co-host of ABC News Breakfast, Michael Rowland, who left the broadcaster after 39 years, in February 2o26.
“It’s bittersweet – but if not now, when?” she wrote on her social media following the announcement. “This feels like the right time to head off and be a creative type of my own.”
She shared a highlight reel of her time at the ABC covering COVID and bushfires; plus her hosting on Lateline, 7.30 and Q and A.
Beyond her myriad of broadcasting roles across the ABC, she also hosted Creative Types with Virginia Trioli. In this six-part series (available on ABC iView), she spends time with actors and artists to explore what it means to be creative.
“After spending all this time with a whole lot of creative types, I realised that I kind of am one, too. And that’s really what I want to go and focus on now,” she said to ABC News.
“I’ve just been so fortunate and had the luckiest and best career you can possibly have in mainstream media,” she continued. “But right now I am just itching to go and work on my own creative projects.”
Even beyond the ABC, she was a mainstay of the Australian media landscape. She even hosted an inspiring Q&A with Dame Quentin Bryce at The Australian Women’s Weekly Women of the Future (WoTF) Awards in 2019.
Virginia also went on 774 ABC Melbourne to speak with Raf Epstein about her decision to leave the ABC.
“I know I’ve picked the time right,” she said of her “bittersweet” decision. “I’ve chosen to have another chapter.”
That chapter will include working on two new books, following her 2024 novel A Bit On The Side. She also mentioned a TV script that she’s been “noodling” with.
Her last day will be 26 June.
