Lisa Wilkinson to present speech at $140-per-head pub luncheon
Lisa Wilkinson will return to the public stage this week but at a more low-key event than the veteran journalist is accustomed to.
Elusive television host Lisa Wilkinson has sold out a $140 per head pub lunch where she will deliver a keynote speech on how she grew up to become “a force in Australian media and our cultural life”.
The 63-year-old, who has been laying low while fighting a high-profile defamation case, will appear at Brisbane’s Eatons Hill Hotel on Friday as a guest of the Moreton Bay Region’s Industry and Tourism body — The Australian’s Media Diary first reported.
She has remained off Ten’s screens in the last two months. Despite this , she is understood to be on the network’s books, it has been speculated she has still being receiving her full salary, which was reported to be upwards of $1.7 million a year.
If the figure is accurate, she has potentially made about $280,000 during her two-month hiatus.
It’s unclear what reimbursement she will receive for her pub speech, with the ticket price to also cover a two-course lunch with drinks and access to a networking event from 2.30pm to 5.00pm. The number of tickets sold was also not available.
An online advertisement for the event stated the Industry and Tourism body was “delighted to present the multi-Walkley-nominated and Logie award-winning journalist and presenter, Lisa Wilkinson AM”.
“This special business luncheon is in celebration of International Women’s Day”, it said, with the theme of the event, “cracking the code innovation for a gender-equal future”.
Attendees have been told to expect deep insight into Wilkinson’s story, which has spanned over more than 25 years in television and promises to be “far more complex than many would think”.
She will discuss her tough experience with bullying as a teenager and her subsequent survival with “determination and drive”.
Theaudience will also be given an intimate look into how she became the youngest editor ever appointed to take charge of a national magazine, Dolly, before she was headhunted to edit Cleo.
“Widely known too for her inspiring leadership Lisa became a mentor to many who went on to forge their own highly successful media careers, including Mamamia.com’s Mia Freedman, and longtime Women’s Weekly editor, Deborah Thomas, and was even instrumental in discovering a then-unknown Nicole Kidman and giving the 15-year-old her very first magazine cover,” the event’s ad read.
Discussion was also set to be had surrounding Wilkinson’s time as co-host of Nine’s Today Show alongside Karl Stefanovic, and the “media storm” that erupted around the gender pay gap before she switched networks to co-host The Project.
She was credited for her memoir It Wasn’t Meant To Be Like This which saw her nominated in the Australian Book Industry Awards for Best Autobiography.
“Lisa’s keynote is the story of how a young girl from Sydney’s western suburbs came to be such a force in Australian media and our cultural life. It is a story too, that is deeply honest, hilariously funny, truly engaging – and powerfully inspirational,” the ad stated.
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