Leigh Sales

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Leigh Sales is an author and award-winning political journalist with the Australian national broadcaster, the ABC.

1 Career
2 References

[edit] Career

Sales was a journalist with Nine television in Brisbane before joining the ABC. She is a graduate of Deakin University (Master of International Relations) and QUT (Bachelor of Journalism).

[edit] Awards

In 2005, she won the Walkley Award for best Radio Current Affairs reporting for a story about two military prosecutors quitting the Guantanamo Bay trials because they believed the process was rigged. She was nominated in the same category again in 2006 for her coverage of Hurricane Katrina. She was awarded the 2007 George Munster award for independent journalism for her book 'Detainee 002', which the judges said recognised her 'assiduous invesigation, quality writing and balanced reporting'.

[edit] At the ABC

She is currently the ABC's national security correspondent based in Sydney and was the ABC's Washington correspondent from 2001 to 2005. Sales has held positions in national radio current afairs and NSW political reporter (covering the 1999 and 2007 state elections and the 2000 Olympics).

At the ABC, she also performs a variety of fill-in and special event roles on ABC's national news and current affairs programs. She regularly hosts Lateline when Tony Jones is away and has also anchored the 7.30 Report in the absence of Kerry O'Brien.

[edit] David Hicks book

Sales wrote the first book published about the Australian Guantanamo Bay inmate, David Hicks. Titled Detainee 002: the case of David Hicks (MUP, May 2007), it details the story of Hicks' capture and detention and includes allegations of torture at the hands of the US military. The book, published almost a year before David Hicks would be free to speak publicly of his experiences, was prepared in part from Sales' interviews with Hicks' father and lawyers for Hicks.^[1]

Sales visited Guantanamo Bay twice in her years as Washington correspondent. Richard Ackland of the Sydney Morning Herald, says the book canvasses some of the important issues around detainment such as, What is a terrorist? How should those people rounded up in a "war on terror" be detained and tried? To what extent should the normal decencies be suspended for the "worst of the worst"?^[2]

Australian gonzo journalist and best-selling author, John Birmingham reviewed the book for the Australian Literary Review on June 6, 2007, describing it as "fascinating and masterfully done." He wrote:

It is to Sales's credit that she manages to cut through the layers of meaning, many of them contrary, that have wrapped themselves around the diminutive figure of this former slaughterhouse worker and self-confessed jihadi. It is even more impressive that she does so, not with a cold forensic detachment or the ferocity of a crusading reporter, but with real empathy for the best intentions of all involved in the story...