Jana Wendt

Jana Bohumila Wendt ( ; born 9 May 1956) is an Australian television journalist, reporter, and writer.

Early life and education Jana Bohumila Wendt

Wendt attended Presentation College, Windsor, before graduating at the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Arts (French, Honours) in 1979.

Career During her career, Wendt worked for every major commercial broadcaster as well as the public broadcasters. She was at one point the highest-paid person on Australian television. Wendt's television career began as a journalist for ATV-10 evening news, before sharing presenting duties with David Johnston. as well as filing stories for the American CBS 60 Minutes. 60 Minutes producer Gerald Stone described her as "more like a Hollywood film star than anyone else in Australian TV".

Over the course of her career, Wendt interviewed, among others, Yasser Arafat, Muammar Gaddafi, Alan Bond, and Dustin Hoffman.

The absence of Wendt on the Sunday program's relaunch on 3 September 2006 was met with an unprecedented number of complaints.

Wendt was then sacked from her regular "Lunch" column for The Bulletin magazine, due to the association the magazine had with the Nine Network; both had the same parent company, PBL.

On 12 September 2006, just ten days after she left the Nine Network, Wendt agreed to appear on stage at the Seven Network's 50 Years of Television presentation, where she co-presented the News and Current Affairs section with Sydney news presenter Ian Ross, another former Nine Network employee.

Fiction In 2025 Wendt published a book of short stories, entitled The Far Side of the Moon and Other Stories. It has been well-received by critics.

Other activities Delivering the second Andrew Olle Media Lecture in 1997, Wendt said of the profession:

I was rewarded handsomely, extravagantly... and that reward has now bought me the most valuable commodity of all – freedom. I am able to say many things that my colleagues, still tied to one or other mighty media empire cannot say. They are the ones who continue to work within an increasingly restrictive atmosphere. An atmosphere imposed by what has transformed ominously, from journalism that is true to itself, into journalism dictated overridingly by the market. And yet more and more, journalists are asked to distort their values to the perceived dictates of the market.

Personal life Wendt married producer Brendan Ward in 1984 and they have one son, Daniel.

Awards Wendt won the 1992 Gold Logie Award for her role as host of A Current Affair. She was not at the presentation to accept her award, citing commitments to A Current Affair, based in Sydney, while the awards were being presented in Melbourne.

Wendt won a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2018 Kennedy Awards.

Publications A Matter of Principle – New Meetings with the Good, the Great and the Formidable, Melbourne University Press, 2007. . Nice Work, Melbourne University Press, 2010. The Search for MH370 Deepest Dive (2022), eight-part podcast presented by Jana Wendt and Peter Waring The Far Side of the Moon and Other Stories, Text, 2025.