Sally Sara
Sally Sara | |
|---|---|
| Born | Sally Jane Sara Template:Birth year and age South Australia, Australia |
| Occupation(s) | Journalist, television presenter, author, playwright |
| Years active | 1992–present |
| Known for | Foreign correspondent for ABC; host of Radio National Breakfast |
Sally Jane Sara AM (born 1991) is an accomplished Australian journalist, television presenter, author, and playwright. She has a long-standing association with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, having served as a foreign correspondent across Africa, South Asia, and Afghanistan. Presently, Sara is the host of Radio National Breakfast on ABC Radio National.
Early life and education
Born in 1991 in South Australia, Sara was raised in Port Broughton on the Yorke Peninsula. Inspired by her grandmother and mother’s theatrical involvement, she nurtured a strong interest in drama from a young age and aimed to become a playwright. At just eight years old, she broke new ground as the first female player for the Port Broughton Football Club.
Sara completed her schooling in Kadina and earned her degree at the University of Adelaide, where she lived at St Mark's College between 1988 and 1990. Her academic pursuits included screenwriting courses that later supported her career in playwriting.
Career
Following university, Sara embarked on her writing journey by submitting a pilot script to the producers of A Country Practice in Sydney.
Her entry into journalism began at Outback Radio 2WEB located in Bourke, New South Wales. In 1992, she joined the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) as a rural reporter stationed initially in Renmark, South Australia. Her career also took her to Alice Springs, Adelaide, Melbourne, and Canberra.
From 2000 until 2005, Sara served as ABC’s Africa correspondent—the first woman appointed to this position. She also covered events from Jakarta, the Middle East, and London during the 2005 bombings. In February 2006, she took on the role of presenter for ABC’s Landline.
In November 2008, Sara was named ABC’s South Asia correspondent based out of New Delhi. Between February and December 2011, she reported from Kabul as ABC’s Afghanistan correspondent, delivering coverage on the conflict from both Afghan and NATO viewpoints. Operating largely independently near frontlines enabled her to gain exceptional access to women’s experiences shaped by cultural gender barriers. After nearly twelve years overseas, she returned to Australia to become ABC’s regional and rural affairs correspondent.
Sara joined ABC's Foreign Correspondent program in August 2013. In October 2016, she resumed her role as Africa correspondent based in Nairobi.
Throughout her career, Sara has reported from more than 40 countries including Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Zimbabwe, and South Africa.
Between 2020 and 2024, she hosted The World Today, a weekday current affairs show on ABC Radio. In November 2024 it was announced that Sara would succeed Patricia Karvelas as host of RN Breakfast, beginning January 2025. Prior to this full transition, she will present Summer Breakfast from December 16, 2024 until January 3, 2025. The refreshed team will feature political correspondent Melissa Clarke, business correspondent Peter Ryan, and news presenter Luke Siddham Dundon.
Other activities
Sara has contributed articles to both the Boston Globe and The New York Times. She authored chapters in South Africa, Lesotho & Swaziland (2004) by Mary Fitzpatrick as well as in Travellers' Tales Stories from ABC TV's Foreign Correspondents (2004).
She is the writer behind Gogo Mama, which presents narratives of twelve women from different African nations.
In February 2013, Sara launched a twelve-part online series titled Mama Asia on the ABC website—an extension of themes explored in Gogo Mama. For this project, she spent time with each featured woman and developed it into a television series blending photography with audio storytelling. The series showcased diverse personalities such as Afghan helicopter pilot Latifa Nabizada, Thai Buddhist monk Bhikkhuni Dhammananda, a South Korean living with leprosy, a sheep shearer beyond the Gobi Desert, a matriarch from a Mumbai slum, a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, Filipina human rights advocate Hilda Narciso, and a Bangladeshi acid attack survivor. These stories were released monthly from February through December 2013.
Sara’s debut play Stop Girl premiered at Sydney's Belvoir Street Theatre in March 2021 and ran until late April to favorable critiques. The production—five years in development—follows a war correspondent’s experiences between Kabul and Sydney. Her research included interviews with real-life individuals who inspired the characters, enriching the authenticity of the narrative. Sara described this work as a means to channel challenging experiences into something constructive.
Recognition and awards
In September 2007, Sara received the Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship, an honor that acknowledges women journalists committed to human rights reporting and includes opportunities for international study. During this period, she also served as a visiting fellow at the MIT Center for International Studies.
In 2011, Sara was honored as a Member of the Order of Australia, recognizing her contributions to journalism both as a foreign correspondent and for her coverage of rural Australian issues. The following year, St Mark's College designated her as a Distinguished Collegian, and she was selected as an Ochberg Fellow at Columbia University's Dart Centre.
Her professional journey is marked by numerous accolades, both nationally and abroad. Early in her career, she earned several awards while working at Outback Radio 2WEB. As of 2024, she has been recognized with four UN Media Peace Awards. Additional distinctions include South Australian Young Journalist of the Year and Queensland Journalist of the Year. In 1993, she secured three Dalgety Awards for Excellence in Rural Journalism, followed by the John Douglas Pringle Award in 1999.
Sara has frequently been shortlisted for the prestigious Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism, winning in 2017 for her coverage of famine in Somaliland as well as for outstanding radio reporting. Her book Gogo Mama was shortlisted for the best non-fiction category at the 2010 Walkley Awards.
Her story on the Pakistan floods earned a Logie Award nomination in 2011, and she received a Silver Medal at the New York Festivals Television and Film Awards for the piece titled "Standing on the Sky." In 2016, she was among the finalists at the 6th AACTA Awards for her report on #BlackLivesMatter. Moreover, Sara has been twice nominated for the Graham Perkin Award.
Personal life
Sara is a champion in state-level Masters Athletics and claimed a silver medal at the Australian Masters Athletics Championships held in 2007.
Her younger brother Tyson works as a strategist in the defense sector and was deployed to Afghanistan during the same period as Sara.
To address trauma sustained during her time in Kandahar, she engaged in several years of psychological trauma therapy.
She is conversant in Zulu and maintains a friendship with fellow journalist Leigh Sales.