Tonight is the Logies.
It's the night of nights for Australian TV. Except this year, thanks to the benevolence of the Queensland government who offered to help sponsor the shindig, it’s moving from Melbourne to the Gold Coast. So expect Schoolies just with less goon and a touch more glamour.
A number of journalists have also won one the Gold, which suggests the category is sometimes like the Walkleys but for popular people (as it’s voted on by the public not their peers).
Previous newshounds who have taken out the gong are Ray Martin, Carrie Bickmore, Waleed Aly and Jana Wendt.
Oh and Karl Stefanovic.
Tonight, A Current Affair host Tracy Grimshaw is nominated. Here’s why she should win.
1. She once roasted Gordon Ramsay like a chestnut.
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In 2009 Grimshaw clapped back at the celebrity chef who launched a public attack on her at a food and wine show because he didn’t like her line of questioning during a pre-recorded interview.
He reportedly described her as an “old ugly pig” in front of 3000 people who thought they had paid to see him give a cooking demonstration.
She later replied with a lengthy editorial on air and dropped mic by saying: “We all know that bullies thrive when no one takes them on and I’m not going to sit meekly and let some arrogant narcissist bully me.”
“Obviously any woman that doesn’t find him attractive must be gay. For the record I don’t,” she said.
2. She taught Karl Stefanovic everything he knows.
Trace co-hosted Today from 1996 for nine years and she was responsible for initiating Karlos when he started out in breakfast television in the mid-aughts.
Her parting advice: "You’re way too needy for this job."
Don't forget to vote for Tracy Grimshaw in the #TVWeekLogies! #9Today
3. Even how to party at the Logies.
After the 1998 Logies in Melbourne she got so drunk from doing shots with her then-boss James Packer she found herself naked in the hallway of her hotel.
“Suddenly it was quarter to four in the morning and I had done a few tequila shots and I was doing the Today Show that morning,” she once told Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O.
“I thought I am going to have a shower and get ready because the girls [hair and make-up artists] are going to be here in 15 minutes to get me all 'shooshed' for the Today Show. So I took the dress off I was wearing and all the finery and pulled out all the bits and bobs from my hair and went to have a shower and found myself in the hallway. At Crown.”
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#neverforget
4. She anchored rolling coverage of the Thredbo landslide.
After filming Today and then an extended edition of the breakfast show, she presented non-stop coverage of the 1997 disaster. She came off air (probably for OH&S reasons) just before Stuart Diver was pulled alive from the rubble.
5. Her 11 day coverage of the Beaconsfield mine collapse.
She was on the ground and broadcasting around the clock from Tasmania for almost two weeks straight.
As well as reporting she also had to grieve the death of her friend and colleague Richard Carlton, a legendary 60 Minutes reporter who died from a heart attack on the scene.
She maintained a relationship with the victims for more than a decade. Last year she broke the story of Todd Russell’s marriage breakdown with a tell-all interview.
6. She grilled NRL great Matty Johns at the height of the sport’s (first major) sex scandal in 2009.
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“You have a perfect opportunity right now to step up and send a message to other players about this culture,” she said. Johns was silent.
7. She probably invented the shoey.
8. She is an animal lover.
9. The drama of that Don Burke interview.
"In part I deserve this, but not for all that sleazy, sexual stuff," says Don Burke. #9ACA | WATCH THE FULL STORY: https://t.co/TJfiooQfHh https://t.co/LSFV0AXoXP
She managed to keep a straight face as Don Burke explained to her that self-diagnosed Aspergers and Twitter were to blame for the numerous allegations of sexual harassment and bullying which have been levelled against him.