Veteran broadcaster Caroline Jones is leaving ABC TV's Australian Story, and the ABC itself.
Jones, who has been at the ABC for more than 50 years and has presented Australian Story on Monday nights since its launch in May 1996, will not be replaced on the show. It is expected that some adjustments may need to be made to the format to deal with the fact each standalone episode will no longer be introduced by a host.
In a statement issued via the ABC on Friday, Jones said, "This is not an easy decision for me".
That might have suggested she had been pushed out as part of the raft of changes passing through the ABC, changes that have seen the Catalyst team disbanded and staff made redundant, and programs and presenters axed from Radio National.
However, she told Fairfax, the decision was entirely hers.
"I go by my own choice, but always with a great emotional attachment to the ABC and Australian Story. I'll always be a devoted ABC person," she said.
"It's a question of timing," the 78-year-old added. "As you get older you get a sense of all the other things there are to do, and you realise that the time to do them isn't endless."
Jones said she didn't think of this as retiring. "I'm far too busy to retire."
She intends to continue her role as president of the Mary MacKillop Foundation, which provides educational opportunities to the socio-economically disadvantaged, and in her role as national patron of Women in Media. She said she might pick up a paint brush again, and "I definitely want to travel – there's so much of Australia I'd like to see".
Joining the ranks of the grey nomads then?
"I haven't gone grey yet, so I wouldn't really qualify," she said. "And I wouldn't do it that way anyway."
Caroline Jones joined the ABC in 1965 and became the first female reporter on Australia's first national current affairs program, This Day Tonight, in 1968. In 1972, she became the first woman to anchor Four Corners.
For eight years she presented the interview-based The Search For Meaning on Radio National. The conversations from that program were collected in four books released between 1989 and 1995. She has also authored two other books, though says she has no intention of writing another.
In 1988, Jones was made an Officer of the Order of Australia.
The ABC's director of news, Gaven Morris, said Jones was "a legend of Australian journalism, a trailblazer, an inspiration and a role model for so many women in the media. She is also a fine journalist and broadcaster, one of Australia's best communicators, and a terrific human being. We will miss her deeply."
Australian Story returns to air on 6 February, 2017.
Karl Quinn is on facebook at karlquinnjournalist and on twitter @karlkwin
