Allison Langdon: ‘I’ve got the best of both worlds’
Newly announced Today show co-host Allison Langdon reflects on what has changed in the media for women since she started in the industry and why she believes “no-one works harder than a working mum”.
Stellar
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She has just been announced as the new Today show co-host alongside Karl Stefanovic next year, but if you had asked Allison Langdon 20 years ago what her dream job was, her answer would have been simple: 60 Minutes. Which is why the novelty of reporting for the Nine Network’s flagship current affairs program has never truly worn off.
“I’ve had an extraordinary time on 60 Minutes,” says Langdon, 40, who celebrates a decade on the show next month. “Give me a bucket list and I’ve ticked everything off. I could fill a book of moments that stick with you – moments where it could be just meeting human beings and you go, ‘Oh my goodness, you just restored my faith in humankind,’ all the way to, ‘I’m looking into the eyes of evil right now…’”
In her time with the program, the animal lover has been up close and personal with gorillas in Virunga National Park, dived with leopard seals in Antarctica and with great white sharks off the coast of South Africa – no cage present.
Langdon has been chased frighteningly through the roads of Brunei while on an undercover assignment. She’s interviewed Neil Diamond, Backstreet Boys, Kevin Rudd and – in an explosive chat marred by his constant winking and a slam of Lleyton Hewitt – tennis player Bernard Tomic.
“I love the stories,” says Langdon, who for the past two years has also co-hosted breakfast television’s Weekend Today alongside David Campbell.
Although there had been widespread speculation in recent months that Langdon would move across to co-host weekday counterpart Today next year, her role was yet to be announced at the time of her interview with Stellar and she would not be drawn into the rumour mill.
“I feel like I’ve got this great career balance happening right now – the best of both worlds,” she tells Stellar. “I get to do stories with 60 Minutes and I love live television. Weekend ensures I’m not doing big trips [for 60 Minutes], so I don’t have to go and spend a month or six weeks overseas anymore.”
Regardless of where things land in the turbulent world of television in the future, she is confident she and husband, fellow broadcaster Michael Willesee Jnr, will make things work for their family.
“A lot of the time you’re just keeping your head above water,” says Langdon of juggling two careers with two little ones, son Mack, nearly three, and daughter Scout, eight months. “My husband and I are 50/50 and it wouldn’t work any other way. He’s about to take paternity leave, which was not around when our parents were raising us. We both work in jobs we absolutely love, and you just make it work. Everything is on a whiteboard, and you occasionally pass each other in the hallway like, ‘Oh, I know you.’”
Langdon has noticed a far more relaxed vibe with her second child. “I had Mack when I was about 37, nearly 38. And I think when you are established in your career… they always say older mothers struggle because we are used to being in control of our lives. And then this human being comes along and turns everything upside down.” Scout, on the other hand, “is the cruisiest kid. She sleeps overnight and has since day dot. Her brother has never done that.”
Much was made of Langdon’s decision to return to work when Mack was just two weeks old, but Langdon is keen to clarify she isn’t “superhuman” and that she had only been dropping by Nine’s headquarters to finish writing a script, not start working full-time.
“The producers would have happily written them on their own, but I wanted to be involved because I wasn’t handling being at home with this baby all day on my own. I just wanted to engage that side of my brain,” she tells Stellar.
“I didn’t suffer with postnatal depression, but when everyone’s saying to you, ‘You’re amazing, you’re back in the office,’ it was more like, ‘I hate being at home with this baby alone – it’s driving me nuts.’”
While the support provided by her workplace during both pregnancies has been “terrific”, Langdon is aware it was not always that way.
“When I started in the newsroom, Brian Henderson was reading the news. I remember sitting on the production desk and Kim Watkins, who used to read the morning news, came up and said ‘I’m pregnant!’ Do you know what my first thought was? ‘Oh, what a shame Kim’s leaving. She’s such a great newsreader.’ That was what happened 17 years ago.
“Now nearly all of the female news presenters and reporters are mothers,” she continues. “And you know what? No-one works harder than a working mum. Because you are constantly feeling guilty you aren’t spending enough time at the office or enough time with the kids.”
Having seen changes in media, Langdon is eager to promote the same advances for women in scientific fields. As such, she’ll host the annual L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Awards ceremony in Sydney this week.
The awards were founded in 1998 and aim to highlight the importance of ensuring greater participation of women in science.
Each year, the program recognises the achievements of five female scientists, and awards them with funding to help further their research. “When you’re in a room with a bunch of extraordinary women and applauding their achievements, it’s wonderful,” says Langdon.
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Yet she acknowledges there is a lot of work to be done – with only 28 per cent of researchers being women, and less than 20 per cent making up the most senior leadership positions. “These things don’t change overnight. When I was in school, I was really good at maths and I loved science, but I didn’t pursue that in Year 11 and 12.
It wasn’t even something I considered. I feel like the change is taking place – it’s something we are hopefully going to see in the next 10 or 20 years.
“These awards are providing role models. This new generation can come through and say, ‘Well, hang on, look at what they achieved. Maybe I’ll follow that same path.’ We like to be inspired, don’t we?”
It’s what she hopes for her own children – to find something in the world that sparks inspiration. “Until they come home and tell me, ‘Mummy, I want to be a…’” She pauses. “I’m trying to think what I wouldn’t be OK with! I actually don’t think there is anything I wouldn’t be OK with. Nothing too dangerous. I don’t want to have to be worried sick about them.”
When Stellar points out that, in fact, her job at 60 Minutes has, at times, been pretty dangerous, Langdon grins. “Yeah. I worry my parents a lot.”
The 2019 L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Awards ceremony will be held on Thursday at Café Sydney; forwomeninscience.com.au.