Michael Rowland to exit ABC after 39 years

7.30 national affairs reporter Michael Rowland is stepping down from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), ending a 39-year career with the public broadcaster.

Rowland has been a fixture of the ABC’s political and international coverage, reporting from Parliament House, Washington and, more recently, the News Breakfast desk.

His departure marks the end of nearly four decades in daily news and current affairs.

Michael Rowland steps down after 39 years. Image: ABC

Michael Rowland resigns from the ABC

Rowland wrote this morning:

"After almost four decades in the grinding environment of daily news and current affairs, and having watched luck run out for so many people, I've decided now is a good time to step away.

"It was not an easy decision to leave the professional home of my entire adult life, but it was the right one in so many ways. I am also now on to my eighth managing director, and while I think Hugh Marks is great, it's another gentle reminder of how long I have been here."

Rowland also reflected on the changes he's seen, writing, "In my career, I have gone from lugging a back-breaking reel-to-reel tape recorder out on radio jobs to now being able to do pretty much everything on my mobile phone (happily now much smaller and lighter than a brick).

"And while so much has changed in my 39 years, the ABC's guiding principles haven't. It has been a privilege to work for an organisation that has always valued truth, facts and fairness."

Rowland concluded, "With that, I say goodbye to the ABC and goodbye to the audiences that have hopefully been left a little bit better informed by the thousands of stories I've reported and presented since picking up my first ABC microphone as that anxious teenager.

"Farewell."

From news cadet to National News Reporter

In a statement, the ABC said:

"Michael joined the ABC in Sydney in February 1987 as a radio news cadet and went on to work in a variety of roles over the years, including reporting on state and federal politics and being Lateline’s Economics Correspondent.

"From 2005-2009 Michael was an ABC Washington Correspondent, covering the election of Barack Obama, the David Hicks case at Guantanamo Bay and the Global Financial Crisis. He has been back to the US to help anchor ABC coverage of the last four Presidential elections.

"Returning to Melbourne he became co-presenter of ABC News Breakfast in June 2010. The program had been on air around 18 months and Michael became a key figure in its success, a familiar and trusted face for viewers each morning for the next 15 years.

"After leaving the program in December 2024 he filled in presenting The Radio National Hour and most recently was National Affairs Reporter for 7.30."

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