Stephen Smiley

Supervising Producer, 7.30

Hi, I’m a journalist based in Sydney, Australia. I have 15 years of experience as an executive and supervising producer, commissioning editor, people leader, reporter and presenter, covering current affairs and investigations. Right now, I’m a Supervising Producer at 7.30, Australia’s preeminent television current affairs program. Previously, I was the Executive Producer of the youth current affairs show triple j Hack, where I managed a team of 10 award-winning reporters and producers based all around Australia working across radio, podcast, text, video and social platforms, while in 2023 I was the Supervising Producer of The World Today program on ABC Radio, commissioning and coordinating more than a dozen reporters and correspondents. Before all of that, I was the Supervising Producer of ABC News Daily, which became Australia’s biggest daily news podcast during my leadership.

Between 2018 and 2021 I co-hosted The Signal podcast, and also worked as a reporter for AM, RN Breakfast, The World Today and PM on ABC Radio. I spent two years as the State Political Reporter for the ABC in Tasmania; a year reporting from the Queensland outback, based in Mount Isa; and a year training in the ABC’s cadetship program, based in Adelaide. I lived in London for a year, where I worked as a producer at Associated Press scripting, editing and fact-checking video features, and as a contributor to The Guardian, where I compiled a weekday newsletter.

Between 2015 and 2017 I lived in New York, where I completed a Masters degree in political reporting at the Columbia Journalism School and was awarded Best Thesis. In 2017, I worked at Columbia as a postgraduate journalism fellow, co-authoring a prize-winning investigation for ProPublica, writing about the American school system for Slate, and producing a podcast for The Atlantic.