
George Negus AM is one of Australia's best known media professionals with a passion for international affairs which has given him a perspective typical of someone with his enormous global experience as a journalist and traveller. He grew up in Queensland and was a teacher before he was a journalist. Football (the round ball) is his game. Home is the Bellinger Valley in northern NSW.
George wrote, directed and presented Australian commercial and public television current affairs from 1975 through 2012.
You probably know George as a founding reporter on Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes (1979-86) where he cemented his reputation and passion for explaining the world to his audience.
He has worked alongside many of the great cameramen and producers of his generation and interviewed a vast list of interviewees spanning international and national politics, the arts and sport including musical geniuses Bob Marley and Dylan; Hollywood legends Steven Spielberg, Robert Redford and Meryl Streep; Bill Clinton, the Dalai Lama, Tony Blair, Muammar Ghaddafi and of course, his infamous exchange with British PM Margaret Thatcher.
He has worked independently via Negus Media International since the early 1990s after a stint hosting national breakfast television and radio and then became presenter/interviewer & reporter for Australia’s first dedicated foreign affairs program, the ABCs Foreign Correspondent. After a professional writing sabbatical in Italy, George hosted the nationally focussed programs Australia Talks and George Negus Tonight; Channel Seven's coverage of both Gulf Wars; SBS TV’s flagship international affairs program Dateline, TEN Network's 2011 news analysis program at 6/630pm and became a regular contributor to its innovative Rove Productions edgy and contemporary take on news, The Project.
Between 2005 and 2010 travelled with Dateline to countries including Bangladesh, Libya, Ireland, the UK, Canada and the United States for Dateline, and interviewed Indira Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto, Colonel Gaddafi, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and the Dalai Lama... many more interviews are included in The World From Down Under, a book published at the end of his SBS stint.
Negus Media’s books include bestsellers The World From DownUnder; The World From Italy and The World from Islam produced with publisher Harper Collins and Trev the Truck, a childrens series with Penguin books.
George continues as occasional international/national affairs commentator on Australian TV/radio, consulting and facilitating for government and industry.
His current speech is dubbed: The World was Never going to be the Same which is George's perspective and reminder of how much change -- which may often seem unimaginable -- always emerges and change lives in the most extraordinary and exciting way.
George also now travels without a camera –hosting international journeys with small groups of Australian travellers to destinations like Iran and Central Asia, The Kimberley, Africa, Russia, Cuba, South America and Italy where he and his family lived for 15 months in 2000.
THE TRIP -- TRAVEL FOR THE MIND
George says these journeys with him are like journalism without a television camera and a smaller and a no less critical “audience.”
On the road with you, he draws upon his extensive knowledge and experience from his myriad of global travel destinations, to help our travellers better grasp the tricks of the trade when you must arrive with little knowledge of a destination but depart those locations with a story to tell and thus a greater understanding of where you’ve been and the lives of those you’ve met.
George has concluded from a lifetime observing the world through the lens of a television journalist that there is much to be both enjoyed and learned about countries, their cultures and their peoples by experiencing first-hand their passions, what they eat and why, what they do for fun, for leisure and relaxation, their political views and systems along with their cultural values and religious beliefs.
His focus on the key issue of our times, achieving peace in the Middle East resulted in the book The World From Islam published as 9/11 shocked New Yorkers and the world.
One Australian reviewer wrote about his book:
“Somehow Negus manages to demystify many things that seem foreign to residents of the Western world – the burka, Ramadan, insh’allah (god willing) and the Qur’an (or Koran). And surprisingly, what becomes most clear in this book is that despite the obvious differences in religion and culture, the Muslim world also shares many similarities with the West. We are not as different as we may think!”
Throughout his career George has incisively tracked the Israeli-Palestinian conflict via several of its leaders and peace-brokers including Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat and making friends in the region including those involved in the “back channel” Oslo Peace Accord negotiations, Terje Roed Larsen and his wife, Mona Juul (now told in an Off Broadway J.T. Rogers “electrifying” stage drama).
George has just returned from 2 trips in Israel, Jordan & the Occupied Territories and prior to that made three recent visits to the region accompanying Australians to Iran and Central Asia in 2016 and 2017. As with his inaugural Travel for the Mind journey to Cuba & Venezuala in 2014, George prefers to see these excursions as not just travel, but “life experiences” for the culturally and even political curious.