Award-winning FIVEaa radio newsreader Anne Stone axed
AWARD-winning Adelaide radio newsreader Anne Stone has described the “brutal way” she was axed by FIVEaa after 19 years, leaving her without a chance to say goodbye to listeners or colleagues.
AWARD-winning Adelaide radio newsreader Anne Stone has described the “brutal way” she was axed by FIVEaa after 19 years, leaving her without a chance to say goodbye to listeners or colleagues.
Breakfast and mornings newsreader Anne tells Confidential she was left “devastated” by the shock sacking last Friday, after which she says she was immediately marched out of the radio station’s building.
“It’s certainly the most brutal way I’ve ever been dismissed from a job in my 32 years in the industry,” says Anne, 52, who was named Australian commercial radio’s best news presenter on the AM dial in 2015 and 2016.
“I didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye. I didn’t get the chance to do anything.
“After (I was told) I was escorted into the newsroom to get my bag and to the lift … and out the building.
“I didn’t need that … it was just ridiculous. I could have made my own way out discreetly. I was upset, I wasn’t going to draw attention to myself. At the end of the day, it’s embarrassing.
“It was a devastating way to end my career and my time at FIVEaa.”
Reflecting on her sacking, Anne says she’s still struggling to come to terms with it.
“It was like a death; it was like something died, which is true, it was such a big part of my life for so long,” she says. “It just all ended so abruptly.”
One of four full-time journalists at FIVEaa, Anne was the only one made redundant last week.
“I’ve been in radio 32 years, I’m one of the most experienced people in the country … I’m bloody good at what I do,” says Anne, who was named one of Aussie radio’s “great modern newsreaders” by respected industry website Radio Today in September.
“At the end of the day, you’ve just got to pick yourself up and keep going don’t you.”
A FIVEaa spokeswoman declined to comment.