Katrina Lee

Katrina Lee is an Australian executive director and former television news presenter.

Lee is perhaps best known for her association with Network Ten where she was a Logie Award-winning news presenter at TEN-10 in Sydney from the 1970s to the 1990s.

Career Television career After beginning her career as a newspaper journalist at The Daily Telegraph in the 1970s, Lee joined TEN-10.

Lee was appointed as co-presenter of Ten Eyewitness News in 1978. Her appointment came just months after the Australian Broadcasting Commission attracted widespread attention by appointing Margaret Throsby as an ABC News presenter on ABC TV. Although Melody Iliffe is considered to be Australia's first female news presenter when she read the news on Brisbane's QTQ-9 in the 1960s, Throsby and Lee are now regarded as being part of a pioneering group of women who became the first women to read television news bulletins in Australia. Throughout her time reading the news at Ten, Lee was paired with John Bailey, Tim Webster, Ron Wilson and John Mangos.

In late 1984, Lee commenced co-hosted a national daytime program called Good Afternoon Australia with Gordon Elliott. The program was launched by Ten over the summer period in an attempt to lure viewers across from the Nine Network following the end of their popular daytime show The Mike Walsh Show.

In 1988, Lee was a part of a new current affairs show on Ten called Page One, which covered events from Australia and around the world.

In 1991, Lee joined the ABC, where she became a reporter for the national travel show Holiday. Her fellow Holiday reporters included Eric Campbell and Bob La Castra. Lee also hosted the ABC's national Sunday afternoon Review arts and culture program.

In late 1991 Lee was back at Ten, reading the news alongside John Mangos.

Later career After leaving television, Lee became a senior lecturer in journalism.

Lee then became the director of communications and then executive advisor at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney.

In this role, she was vocal in her support of George Pell who had been accused of sexual abuse, and defensive of the way the Catholic Church was dealing with sexual abuse allegations.

Lee supported Pell as he stood trial in August 2018 after he pleaded not guilty to five historical child sexual abuse charges. In December 2018, Pell was found guilty by a jury of all charges but his convictions were subsequently overturned and quashed by the High Court of Australia in April 2020 and he was released from prison.

Awards Lee received Logie Awards for Most Popular Female (New South Wales) in 1980, 1981, 1982 and 1983. He died in 2014 and Lee delivered the first reading at his funeral mass held at St Mary's Cathedral.