Ms Marian Wilkinson

“Stay encouraged, because what the world is telling us at the moment, with all the turmoil going on, is that people still value quality journalism.”

Marian Wilkinson is a multi-award winning investigative journalist whose contributions to public discourse have included some of Australia’s most significant reportage.

Wilkinson is best known for her work on ABC’s Four Corners, and for her role in the Panama Papers exposé that revealed the shadowy underbelly of international finance and embroiled several world leaders.

As an undergraduate student at UQ, Wilkinson was part of the original team that founded Radio Station 4ZZZ the first community FM broadcaster in Queensland. She also wrote for the University paper Semper Floreat, during which time she received her first defamation threat.

Throughout her career, Wilkinson has worked for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, ABC’s Four Corners, The Australian and The National Times, on a broad range of issues including climate change, politics and international security. She became Four Corner’s first female Executive Producer and later deputy editor with the Sydney Morning Herald.

She was awarded her first Walkley Award in 1989 and a Logie in 1990, for her part in a report revealing the political collusion behind John Howard’s ousting from the Liberal Party of Australia. In 2008, her multi-media climate change report, The Tipping Point, won her both a Eureka Prize and a second Walkley Award. Her third Walkley nomination came in 2016 for her work as part of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ (ICIJ) coverage of the Panama Papers. This exemplary feat of investigative journalism earned the ICIJ team the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting.

Wilkinson currently works for ABC’s Four Corners team as a senior reporter.

She has published three books, The Book of Leaks (with Brian Toohey), The Fixer: the untold story of Graham Richardson, and Dark Victory (with David Marr).