Rachael Brown

Rachael Brown is a journalist for the ABC based in Melbourne.

Rachael started her career as the ABC's Melbourne cadet in 2002. She still remembers the deciding moment, six years earlier, as a 16-year-old work-experience student; while the journalist was struggling to find an airport car park, she was thrown out of the car with a tape recorder, in pouring rain, and instructed to find a Minister she'd never heard of. She finally found a crowd, decided the man in the middle was her target, and on tiptoe was ready for his comments... soaked to the bone, heart racing, and certain this was the life for her.

After learning the ropes during her cadetship, Rachael helped run the ABC's Gippsland bureau in Sale, eastern Victoria. It was here the girl from Essendon learnt how to dig for stories, met colourful characters who'll be mates for life, and, as her mentor noted on her farewell card, learnt the region's important lessons; milk price hikes are a good thing, and you can't get beers at the Lakes Entrance (sand) Bar.

Back in Melbourne, Rachael ran the Victorian Courts round for 18 months, covering prominent stories like terrorism trials and Melbourne's gangland war. She won numerous legal reporting awards for her coverage, and in 2008, won the Walkley Award for Best Radio Current Affairs Report, for her breaking story that exposed negligence by the Victorian Medical Practitioners Board. She'd discovered the Board had ignored rape complaints against a Victorian dermatologist. She earned the trust of the women subsequently assaulted, and sat on the story for a year so as not to jeopardise their case.

In 2008, Rachael joined the flagship national Radio Current Affairs programs AM, PM and The World Today, and is now based in London. She's since done stints with Insiders and most recently, The 7:30 Report. Rachael's most testing assignment in 2009 was covering Victoria's Black Saturday Bushfires, and their devastating aftermath.