Neil Mercer to replace Jo Puccini at ABC
Neil Mercer appointed editor of the ABC News national reporting team
Walkley Award-winning investigative journalist Neil Mercer is the new editor of the ABC News national reporting team.
He replaces Jo Puccini, who in March was appointed Executive Producer of 7.30.
Mercer has been a broadcast and print journalist for more than 40 years. In 1972 he joined The West Australian as a cadet. He has reported in the Canberra bureau of The Sydney Morning Herald and for News Corp in New York. In 2012 at the SMH he led the way in revealing the illegal bugging of more than a hundred NSW Police which resulted in an inquiry by the NSW Ombudsman.
He has been a researcher and producer for the Nine Network’s 60 Minutes and worked on stories about police corruption and the infamous Fine Cotton horse racing ring-in. In 1988 he joined the ABC’s Four Corners, where he won a Walkley for his profile of convicted Whiskey Au Go Go killer James Finch. He has also worked on Seven Network current affairs program Witness. In 1997 Mercer wrote Fate, a book about the murder of seven backpackers by Ivan Milat.
