MEGAN MILLER

Features Writer, Herald Sun

After graduating from Curtin Uni in Perth with a Bachelor of English (majoring in journalism) in 1999, Megan did her cadetship at The West Australian newspaper where she covered rounds such as property and education. She moved to Melbourne in 2003 and worked at mX for four years as fashion and entertainment reporter and later as features editor before joining the Herald Sun’s Confidential team where she was paid to go to parties and hang out with celebs. She began her current role as a features writer at the Herald Sun about three years ago, writing mainly for Saturday’s Weekend liftout.

AUSKAR SURBAKTI

Journalist, ABC

Auskar Surbakti is an award-winning multi-platform journalist with the ABC. He is a reporter and anchor for the daily news bulletins on the ABC’s international service, Australia Network, which broadcasts to over 40 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. He is also a reporter for the nightly current affairs program Newsline with Jim Middleton and contributes to the daily radio current affairs program, Connect Asia on Radio Australia as a reporter and presenter. He also files for online.

Before joining the ABC, Auskar was a journalist for SBS, working across the network’s TV news and current affairs programs, including the nightly World News Australia, Insight, Dateline and Living Black. He also contributed to SBS’s radio current affairs program, World View and online.

Auskar’s stories have also featured on CNN. In 2008, he covered World Youth Day and me travelled to and from Rome with the Pope; he’s twice had a private audience with the Dalai Lama and he’s met royalty from India, Britain and Spain. He also covers news stories from around the region, including Indonesia and is fluent in the language. His ‘Rebuilding Aceh’ series won a United Nations media award and he is also the recipient of the Department of Foreign Affairs’ Elizabeth O’Neill Journalism Award.

SARAH WILSON

Journalist, TV Host, Blogger*
*appearing via Skype

Sarah Wilson is an Australian media personality, journalist and blogger with an integrated voice across television, radio, magazines, newspapers and online. She’s the former editor of Cosmopolitan magazine and was the host of the first series of MasterChef Australia, the highest rating show in Australian TV history. Sarah wrote over 100 weekly columns for Sunday Life magazine about how to have a better life, and is a regular guest on Sunrise, Good News Week, 7pm Project, and Sky.

Sarah is an adept social commentator, following a career that’s spanned politics, health advocacy, restaurant reviewing, opinion writing and trend forecasting. She’s also qualified as a Health Coach with the Institute of Integrative Nutrition in New York. Sarah launched her I Quit Sugar ebook in 2011, which has helped over 30 000 people quit the sweet stuff, and recently released her follow up I Quit Sugar e-cookbook mid-2012.

DARREN ROWSE

Problogger

Darren Rowse is renowned as Australia’s #1 blogger and most influential Twitter User. In 2002 Darren started his first ever blog – not knowing that what would start as a personal hobby site would grow into a full time profession and give him the opportunity to speak with millions of people each month.

Since that time Darren has been involved in publishing over 30 blogs but now is active on two as founder and editor:

• Digital-Photography-School.com – photography tips, camera reviews and photoshop tutorials
• ProBlogger.net – a blog teaching others how to build successful blogs

These two blogs are read by around 5 million unique visitors a month. Together they have over 300,000 forum members and 1,000,000 subscribers and several hundred thousand social media followers.

Darren has published 14 eBooks, co-authored the best selling ProBlogger the Book, has co-founded numerous companies and runs the popular ProBlogger Training Conference in Australia.

RACHEL MOOR

Television Executive Producer

Clocking up an impressive 17 years in television, starting with studying fashion at East Sydney Fashion College and a stint in the USA, Rachel returned to Australia continuing to work in event design until shifting her career focus to Music Television, taking on the role as the set designer for the live interactive television music program ‘Ground Zero’ in 1994.

Rachel progressed through various roles in television production to end up producing Ground Zero for a number of years before making the move in 2002 to Executive Producer of Network Ten’s music show, Video HIts where she held the role for 10 years.

At Video Hits, Rachel championed Australian music and was first to program Missy Higgins, Empire of The Sun and many others. Reinventing the once purely clip based program into a hosted music video format, Rachel took the show global interviewing artists all over the World.

Rachel also extended the Video Hits brand both into live events such as Federation Square in Melbourne and Martin Place in Sydney and moved it into the online space.

Rachel went on to be Executive Producer of Entertainment Content at Sydney based agency The Sound Campaign and is now a freelance Executive Producer.

FAUSTINA AGOLLEY

TV Presenter

Faustina Agolley is the V Room Host on Australia’s top rating show, The Voice. Prior to The Voice, Faustina spent five years as the host of Australia’s most watched music program, Video Hits.

Faustina studied Media Studies (TV and Radio) at RMIT University and Media and Communications with a Geography major at The University of Melbourne. Determined to land a job as a TV Producer or Presenter before she graduated from both Universities, Faustina took a year of her Media and Comm and Geography degree at The University of Sydney. While in Sydney, Faustina also clocked up countless of hours doing work experience for Channel 7’s travel program The Great Outdoors where she was an assistant researcher, sourced maps and assisted the show’s editors (Faustina was also able to also claim her work with Channel 7 as credit towards her RMIT degree). Faustina also took work experience with popular children’s program Hi-5 where she assisted the show’s runner, watched story pitches between the show’s writers and producers and mopped floors to pass the time.

Prior to landing her dream job in Music Television, Faustina auditioned to be a presenter with Channel [V] for a summer series. Though not landing the role, Faustina scored some guest presenting spots on [V] while also assisting in research, scripting and taking time codes for the show’s specials. Faustina then filled in as a guest presented on Channel 7 music show, Wild which lead to hosting Cybershack, (originally a gaming review segment on Wild turned to a full half hour a gadget a game review show) late night on Network Ten. During Faustina’s studies in Melbourne and Sydney, Faustina also had a short stint on breakfast radio with SYN FM, was an extra on Secret Life of Us so that she could see how TV productions worked, helped as a camera woman on Channel 31 programs, drove around the Casanova cars for promotional crosses with Nova FM and landed commercial modeling campaigns for Bonds, Peter Alexander and Sunglass Hut.

Faustina’s dream job as presenter came at the same time Cybershack was successfully pitched to Network Ten. Initially put on a 12 week trial with Video Hits, Faustina enjoyed five years traveling the world interviewing some of music’s biggest entertainers. Faustina’s first year in at Network Ten was also spent traveling between Sydney and Melbourne to complete her degrees. Some of Faustina’s highlights include interviewing the Black Eyed Peas, Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Adele, Green Day, Muse, Rihanna, John Paul Jones, Sinead O’Connor and Neil Finn.

Faustina has also hosted Network Ten’s live national coverage of the New Year’s Eve Fireworks from Sydney’s Harbour Bridge, shared her opinions on politics and current affairs as guest panelist on ABC1’s live political show Q&A, and appeared on Good News Week, Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation and Spicks and Specks.