Caroline Wilson

Caroline Wilson's Biography

Caroline Wilson was the first woman to cover Australian Rules football full-time and became a role model for female journalists around the country. Caroline has been covering Australian sports, predominantly AFL, since 1982. Born and raised in Melbourne, Wilson is the daughter of Ian Wilson, who was president of Richmond Football Club between 1974 and 1985.

Caroline’s focus on the business and politics of the football industry brought new transparency to the administration of the sport and often provoked severe criticism and sometimes vicious personal attacks.

Caroline became the first woman to cover Australian Rules Football at the Herald Sun newspaper and in 1989, she was the first woman to win the AFL’s Gold Media Award.

Caroline has since won numerous sporting journalism awards including being voted by the AFL Players Association as Football Writer of the Year in 1999 and Most Outstanding Feature Writer by the AFL Media Association in both 2000 and 2003. She also won the 2003 Melbourne Press Club Quill Award and has been highly commended a further four times.

Caroline appeared every Wednesday night on White Line Fever on Fox Footy until the show was cancelled in 2006 following the dissolution of the Fox Footy Channel. She has also worked in the UK and Europe where she covered four Wimbledons and three British Opens, the FA Cup final and the British soccer riots for the Melbourne Herald Sun.

In 2010 she was presented with the Australian Sports Commission’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2013 she won two Walkley Awards, in March 2014 she was awarded Australia’s most coveted journalism prize, the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year Award, and in 2016 she won the Harry Gordon Australian Sports Journalist of the Year Award.

After three years as a panelist on Channel Seven’s Talking Footy she became a panelist on Channel Nine’s Footy Classified and occasionally appears as a panelist on the ABC television program The Offsiders.

She is married to Seven News reporter, Brendan Donohoe

Caroline’s experience sees her highly sought after as a master of ceremonies, panel host or moderator and excellent guest or keynote speaker where she shares her successful career and challenging journey in a male dominated arena.