‘Choose your attitude’: The advice Virginia Trioli lives by

Welcome to Quick Q – Monday Media’s weekly Q&A series dedicated to finding out more about the personalities that matter most in the media landscape.

Every week, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age ask key figures across corporate media, business, sport, federal politics, radio, television and culture to answer questions about their lives, careers, hobbies and news habits.

This week’s conversation is with Virginia Trioli, host of ABC Radio Melbourne’s Mornings program, airing 8.30am on weekdays.

Virginia Trioli presents the Mornings program on ABC Radio Melbourne.

How did you get your big break?
A friend of a senior Age editor urged him to ignore my terrible cadet exam results and give me a go. Thank god.

What are your daily news media habits?
Read/listen/watch/scroll absolutely everything I can between 4am to 8.30am. Start it all again around 2pm.

Which living person do you most admire?
Colm Toibin.

Your guilty streaming pleasure?
The Americans, because I’ve seen it all a hundred times and whenever my husband walks in, he rolls his eyes at me: are you watching that again?

Which phrase do you overuse?
Are you f---ing kidding me?

What did you want to do when you grew up?
Be an actress.

What was your first job?
Making milkshakes for Sharpies at the Box Hill Bowling Alley cafeteria.

Facebook or Instagram?
Instagram.

Recommend a podcast...
The LRB [London Review of Books] Podcast.

What’s one vice you wish you could give up?
Cake. I could live on cake.

The song that’s always on high rotation?
Head Over Heels by Tears for Fears.

What are you reading?
The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier.

Favourite movie of the past decade?
The Death of Stalin.

Top of your sporting bucket list?
Reporting behind the scenes on the 1993 Ashes tour of England.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
Choose your attitude.

What are the three things you couldn’t live without?
Wedge sneakers, music, parmesan.

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