Author, News Presenter, Columnist

Journalist

Jacinta Tynan is currently a News Presenter with Sky News Australia. Before that she presented news for ABC TV’s international satellite service, ABC Asia Pacific. During her seven years at the ABC she also presented ABC late Edition news and was a relief presenter for the 7pm bulletin, Weekend News and World at Noon. She reported for the 7:30 Report, Lateline and 7pm news. Jacinta’s journalism career has also included presenting ABC TV News in Darwin, reporting for the Seven Network, weather presenter for WIN TV Canberra and Thredbo Snow Reporter.

Author:

Her first book, Good Man Hunting (Random House), a memoir about looking for love in your thirties, was published in 2005. Her second book, Some Girls Do. My Life as a Teenager‘ was published in April 2007 (Allen and Unwin). Jacinta edited and co-authored the book which is an anthology of top female Australian authors writing the true story of their adolescence with all royalties donated to SISTER2Sister - a mentor program for disadvantaged teenage girls. Jacinta is currently working on her first fiction novel.

Columnist:

Jacinta is know for her weekly column with The Sunday Telegraph commentating on relationships and the trials and joys of contemporary life.

Read Jacinta’s previous columns. Jacinta now contributes to various publications including Madison, Sunday Life and Women’s Health.

Career path:

Jacinta grew up in Yowie Bay (in ‘The Shire’), the third of six children with only nine years between them. As a child she aspired to be on Young Talent Time taking ballet lessons and practicing singing into a hairbrush. But she eventually discovered a love of writing and decided to become a journalist. She studied Communications (majoring in Broadcast Journalism) at Charles Sturt University, Bathurst and got her first big break with Prime TV, Wagga, where she was doing work experience and a shortage of reporters meant she was sent out to cover a story on school sport at Mangoplah, and never looked back.

The Tynan children

Her first paying job was at the age of twenty-one as a Reporter with Prime TV, Canberra, but when the newsroom was shut down three months later, she found herself negotiating her first retrenchment package before she’d even graduated from university. Jacinta then spent a ski season in Thredbo as the Snow Reporter filing national TV and radio reports and editing a local paper. When the snow melted she joined Win TV, Canberra, as a news reporter / weather presenter / fill-in news reader where she stayed for the next two years.

At the age of 24, Jacinta moved to Darwin as the 7pm News Presenter for ABC TV and fell in love, with the city, and a local. Weekends were spent camping in Kakadu and kayaking on the Katherine Gorge. She also filled in for Rosemary Church presenting Australia Television News which was aired nationally and internationally. After a brief stint reporting for Today Tonight (Seven Network), Jacinta moved to Canada where, as well as skiing for a season, she studied acting at Vancouver Film School. She then worked in London as a producer with APTN and Access Hollywood interviewing movie stars in the UK and Europe.

On returning to Australia in 1997, she joined ABC TV, initially as a Reporter for 7:30 Report and 7pm News. She also presented National Late News and was fill-in Presenter for 7pm News, Weekends and World at Noon. She was then appointed as the main news anchor for the newly formed ABC Asia Pacific TV broadcasting across 28 countries and ? million homes. Jacinta also traveled to Asia on reporting and promotional assignments including covering the Prime Minister’s visit to China in 2003.

In 2005 Jacinta joined Sky News Australia where she presents the daily and evening news.

She also writes a weekly column for the Sunday Telegraph newspaper, and has authored two books.

Acting:

Jacinta is also a keen actor. As a teenager she studied at Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP) and Phillip Street Theatre and spent her summers at NIDA doing acting workshops. At the age of twenty-five, she decided to give it another go and quit her job as a News Presenter with ABC TV Darwin to study acting full-time at Vancouver Film School in Canada. She then went to London where she took more classes at the prestigious RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts). Her successful career as a journalist has restricted her from pursuing acting as a profession, but she has acted on stage including a charity performance of The Vagina Monologues at Sydney’s Ensemble Theatre, and starring in a director’s cut of Closer at Darlinghurst Theatre Company. She’s also featured in several short films including one which made it into Tropfest Best of The Rest.