Julia Baird will join ABC Local Radio in 2006 to present ‘Sunday Profile’.
She replaces Monica Attard who will present ABC TV’s Media Watch this year.
‘Sunday Profile’ is a half-hour national interview program heard across Australia offering an in-depth analysis of the major news in Australia and around the world. The program talks to the people behind the news on the 60 radio stations which comprise the ABC Local Radio network.
Baird is a columnist for Good Weekend and the Sydney Morning Herald. She has reported on education and politics and was opinion editor for three and a half years. She earned her PhD in history from the University of Sydney in 2001. Her book, Media Tarts: How the Australian Press Frames Female Politicians (based on her doctorate), was published in 2004.
While working on her PhD, she tutored in history and also worked as Triple J’s religious commentator and as a freelancer for ABC radio, having made programs on subjects as diverse as Satanism, heavy metal and being raised by nuns in the 1950s. In the first half of 2005, she was a fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard, researching the globalisation of American opinion in the lead up to the Iraq war.
Baird told radioinfo: “I’m delighted to be working on a program with the reputation and standing of ‘Sunday Profile’. I’ve long been an admirer of Monica Attard’s. Monica has maintained a consistently high standard of news-breaking, insightful and entertaining interviews. It’s a great opportunity to explore the motivations and modus operandi of some of the major players in our public life through in-depth interviews.”
Manager Network Development, ABC Local Radio, Tony Rasmussen commented to radioinfo: “We’re really pleased that Julia is joining ABC Local Radio to present Sunday Profile. I’m sure she’ll continue the program’s tradition of picking which way an issue is going to develop and getting to the main players involved.”
Julia Baird will present ‘Sunday Profile’ at 9pm, returning Sunday 19 February, on ABC Local Radio.