Extract from The Guardian
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Veteran broadcaster will take long break over summer and return to ABC in yet to be announced role.
Fran Kelly is leaving ABC’s Radio National Breakfast program after 17 years as host.
“Sometimes I feel like every hour of my day is mapped out by what I need to achieve in that hour in order to be able to deliver the show the next morning, so it will be nice to breathe out a little,” Kelly told Guardian Australia ahead of her final show.
Kelly, 63, says she is giving up a job that still “thrills” her because she wants a little less adrenaline in her day, a bit more balance and more time to spend with her family, which now includes grandchildren.
As well as getting up at 3.30am for a gruelling two hours of presenting live radio, Kelly has spent most evenings studying briefs. There is nowhere to hide when you conduct high-stakes, live interviews on a national program.
“I was just watching the news last night and something came up and I went to make dinner or something and stopped. I thought ‘I had better watch that because at some point you’re going to have to learn about the story’.”
But giving up what she loves is “bittersweet” for a journalist who came to her craft relatively late – she was 29 when she got her first job on triple J’s The Drum – but has set the standard for passionate professionalism and integrity.
“And being on the crest of a big story is really like riding a wave. It’s very compelling and it drives you along. That’s where I think one of my strengths is. I can write a story really well. And I can get across the story very quickly. Because I’ve had, you know, 30 years of journalism now.”
Since 2005 Kelly has been keeping her audience entertained and informed with all the “stored facts and memories I can bring to bear”.
Kelly has been at the Breakfast mic calmly but firmly questioning no fewer than six prime ministers – John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison.
She admits to being a political animal – “it’s my bailiwick” – who loves leadership challenges. On occasion, she hasn’t even had to decamp quickly to Canberra to cover the event because her “instinct” told her it would happen and she was there already.
“Every day I’ve worked in that building – 10 years solid in Canberra – I never lost that thrill of walking around those corridors,” she says.
What she won’t miss is the frequent accusation from right-wing commentators Gerard Henderson and Chris Kenny that she is an “activist”.
This week Kenny referred to Kelly as “a left-of-centre activist who has hosted RN” and someone who is “really Green-left”.
He’s borrowed the phrase from Henderson who has repeatedly claimed over the years that Kelly “once proudly boasted that she is an ‘activist’”.
But Kelly says her comment has been misconstrued, and while she was active in the social justice and feminist movements at university in the 1970s, she is diligent about her craft and its need to be balanced and fair.
“What I said was in my youth, I was an activist,” Kelly says.
“From my family upbringing, because my parents were active around some issues in terms of Catholic education, state aid and all that. And I just learned growing up to get involved.
“When I decided, I was almost 30, to go into journalism, I knew the rules were different. You have to bring balance and represent balance in your work. I have never gone to a protest march since.”
Kelly says she worked with Kenny, now an associate editor at the Australian and a Sky News presenter, in the press gallery when he was a Liberal staffer and he “is familiar with my journalism” and is being “mischievous ”.
She’s aware of the feedback from listeners via the text line and also of the accusations that she favours one side or the other on Twitter. But she rarely engages.
“It’s not that I don’t accept criticism,” she says. “And I do get it every morning live as I’m going through. And I take note of it and sometimes I take some of the criticism on because my audience is really well informed and know a lot more about certain issues than I do. So I’m happy to wear that. But I really don’t care to be diverted by the personal sledges that are stupid, you know, ‘She’s a right-wing stooge’, ‘She’s a member of shadow cabinet’. It’s nonsense.”
Kelly will take a long break over summer and return to the ABC in a yet to be announced role and RN Drive presenter Patricia Karvelas will take over in January. You can see her chatting to Barrie Cassidy on ABC TVs One Plus One on Thursday at 8pm.
“I have listened to Fran the entire time she has been on it,” Karvelas told Guardian Australia.
“It set my day as a political reporter and then political correspondent for the Australian. So it’s been a part of my daily diet of news and current affairs for years. And, and as everyone has pointed out, and I’m no different, I too found her personable and I found that show relatable, and I always was attracted to its national focus, because national affairs is what I’m most passionate about.”
Kelly and Karvelas are close and have presented a political podcast the Party Room together for five years.
“It’s been thrilling,” Kelly says. “It’s still thrilling. Every morning this week is thrilling. I sometimes think what am I doing? I love this. But it’s best to go before the job takes you.”
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