This biography is republished from The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia. Written by Kathryn Mcleod, National Film and Sound Archive. See below for full attribution.
Born: 1 January 1938, Australia
Died: 20 May 2022
Country most active: Australia
Also known as: Caroline Mary James
Caroline Jones was born on 1 January 1938. Having joined the ABC in 1963, Jones has worked at the ABC for a remarkable 50 years. She was the first women reporter on the program This Day Tonight, as well as the first women to anchor the program Four Corners. Jones presented The Search for Meaning program on ABC Radio National for eight years. The program was a loose series of interviews allowing Australian men and women to tell their stories and ‘reflect on their quest for meaning and purpose’ (Jones, 1995). The radio program was hugely successful and served as the inspiration for ABC’s television program Australian Story, to which Jones has contributed and presented since it went to air in 1996.
Jones was a founding member of the Australia Council for the Arts (1973) and the National Film Board of Review (1971). In 1988/89, she worked with Aboriginal broadcasters at the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA) in Alice Springs as they embarked on producing their first cultural and current affairs program for television and was appointed as an Ambassador for Reconciliation by the Aboriginal Council for Recognition in 1998.
In recognition of her contribution to radio and television journalism, Jones receiving the Officer of the Order of Australia in 1988 and was voted as one of Australia’s 100 National Living Treasures in 1997.
Works cited
Kathryn Mcleod, ‘Jones, Caroline’, in The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia, Australian Women’s Archives Project, 2014, https://www.womenaustralia.info/leaders/biogs/WLE0490b.htm, accessed 16 January 2022.