Groundbreaking Australian journalist George Negus dies, aged 82

George Negus was made for TV. The pioneering journalist, one of the three original members of 60 Minutes and the inaugural host of ABC’s Foreign Correspondent, has died at the age of 82.

George Negus was made for television. The pioneering journalist, one of the three original members of 60 Minutes and the inaugural host of ABC’s Foreign Correspondent, died on Tuesday, aged 82.

In a statement, his family said he died “surrounded by loved ones, after a gracious decline from Alzheimer’s disease, all the while with his trademark smile”.

Negus began his professional life as a high school teacher before switching to journalism, writing for The Australian and the Australian Financial Review, but he shot to prominence as a reporter on the ABC’s This Day Tonight in the late 1960s.

George Negus was a giant of Australian journalism. His courage, curiosity and integrity gave millions of Australians a sense of the big issues on 60 Minutes, and a window to the world through Foreign Correspondent.

George sought and served the truth with steely determination…

— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) October 15, 2024

Farewell #GeorgeNegus. Such an enthusiastic and joyful friend. Thanks for the good times pic.twitter.com/QPyYqx4Cji

— Heather Ewart (@heatherewart1) October 15, 2024

By the time he was hired as one of three founding correspondents for 60 Minutes in 1979 – alongside Ray Martin and Ian Leslie – he was truly a household name.

“George was just such a strong television character,” Martin told The Australian. “In the almost 70-year history of Australian television, I think Bert Newton and George stand out as the two most memorable figures.”

Martin said Negus’s strength as a journalist was that he loved telling stories, and he loved ­people. “Over a drink we’d often ask George to shut up for five minutes, and he would be quiet for five minutes, but then he’d come back with even more colourful stories,” he said.

“A little bit of Negus went a long way, and I mean that with the deepest affection.

“He was always good fun, always worth listening to; his opinions were always loud and forceful, but he loved people. And I think that’s the essence of popular journalism – there was no cynic about George.

“What you saw, is what you got. There was nothing fake about George. George was Negus, 24 hours a day.”

Martin said Negus was “very blokey, very opinionated and very confident”, but also had a wonderful capacity to laugh at himself. “He was a caricature of myself, which is why Paul Hogan sent him up so easily because ­George – with his moustache and his jacket over his shoulder with a war going on behind him – was larger than life,” he said.

“At 60 Minutes we used to do a regular thing with a show reel at the end of every Christmas party, and Leso (Ian Leslie) and I, and then Jana (Wendt) when she joined the show later on, would all try and take the piss out of George with a piece to camera. And he would laugh his head off.”

George Negus was a giant of Australian journalism. His courage, curiosity and integrity gave millions of Australians a sense of the big issues on 60 Minutes, and a window to the world through Foreign Correspondent.

George sought and served the truth with steely determination…

— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) October 15, 2024

On Tuesday, Wendt told The Australian: “It was Negus – for most of us, his colleagues – rather than George. The memories are epic. I remember Negus riding on the back of a jeep through the ­Sahara to tell the story of a ­guerrilla war.

“I can see him in Brazil, standing high on a hill overlooking tens of thousands of men, like ants, digging for gold. And in my memory, too, is Negus reporting from among the cross-burners of the Ku Klux Klan.

“In the many stories he told for 60 Minutes, Negus was the very image of a foreign correspondent.

“He was also a man of many words. He had strong opinions and he let you have them. He gave me the benefit of his views when I joined the show as a rookie reporter. Our discussion went back and forth through a very long evening that stretched into the early hours.

“Afterwards he sent a bunch of flowers and from then on until I last saw him following his cruel ­diagnosis, we were, as he would say, mates. Our boisterous, irrepressible colleague has left us the gift of his unforgettable story.”.

Vale George Negus. Old friend. Good journo

— Phillip Adams (@PhillipAdams_1) October 15, 2024

Farewell #GeorgeNegus. Such an enthusiastic and joyful friend. Thanks for the good times pic.twitter.com/QPyYqx4Cji

— Heather Ewart (@heatherewart1) October 15, 2024

After his seven-year stint on 60 Minutes ended in 1986, Negus co-hosted Channel 9’s breakfast program Today until 1990. In 1992, he became the inaugural host of ABC’s Foreign Correspondent program, a position he held through to 1999. He also fronted other ABC news programs including George Negus Tonight from 2002 to 2004 before he switched to SBS to host Dateline on SBS in 2005.

He was a regular on The 7pm Project on Channel 10 in his twilight years as a journalist.

Negus was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2021 and is survived by wife Kirsty Cockburn and sons Ned, chief commercial officer at the A-League, and Serge, a producer at 60 Minutes.

Ned shared a heartfelt message on LinkedIn recently that included a photo of him and his father embracing on the beach on Father’s Day. Ned wrote: “He’s (Negus) now non-verbal most of the time (mind-blowing for me but also any of you that know him). At one point we stopped, he smiled broadly and then hugged me for quite some time.

“It was sad, but it was uplifting to know that even when you can no longer say what you feel, you can still DO what you feel.”