Tracey Spicer

Tracey Spicer
Spicer at the Australian film premiere of Grace of Monaco, June 2014
Born	1967 (age 48–49) Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Occupation	Sky News Australia Journalist
Spouse(s)	Jason
Children	Taj (born 2004) Grace (born 2006)
Website	http://spicercommunications.biz

Tracey Spicer (born 1967, Brisbane, Queensland)^[1] is an Australian news reader and journalist, she runs media company Spicercommunications . She is best known for her long association with Network Ten as a national newsreader with news bulletins Ten Weekend News, Ten Morning News and Ten Late News - Weekend Edition in the 1990s and 2000s. Prior to presenting the national news, Spicer co-hosted Ten News at Five in Brisbane, Queensland from 1994-1995.

Early life

Spicer attended high school in Brisbane and graduated at the top of her class. She received a Bachelor of Business in communications from the Queensland University of Technology.^[2]

Career

She began her career at the Macquarie National News service providing reports to the Brisbane station 4BH and then became chief police reporter and morning news editor at Melbourne station 3AW. Spicer then moved on to television: first reporting on courts and industry for Southern Cross Television, then hosting Melbourne Extra on the Nine Network affiliate in Melbourne, GTV, and reporting from Melbourne for the National Nine News. ATV, the Network Ten station in Melbourne, later hired Spicer as a local correspondent before promoting her to the national Ten Weekend News in 1995, which in the same year she began presenting the Weekend Bulletin(s) of Ten Late News until it was axed in 2005. Until 2006, Spicer would remain with Ten, and she became a newsreader of the Ten Morning News in 1999. She would continue to present both Ten Morning News and Ten Weekend News until the end of 2006. For the World Wildlife Fund, Spicer produced a documentary in 2001 about fresh water shortages in deforested areas of Papua New Guinea.^[2]

In late 2006, after 14 years with the network Spicer was sacked by email after returning from maternity leave when her second child, Grace, was two months old.^[1] In a 10-page letter of demand served to Network Ten, Spicer claimed she had been discriminated against since giving birth to her first child, Taj, in 2004 following severe pregnancy complications. The case garnered much attention in the media, with speculation she was fired because of her age; Ten strongly denied allegations of discrimination.^[3] Spicer threatened to take the case to the Federal Court, but eventually settled with the network for $250,000.^[4] The newsreader signed off for the final time on New Year's Eve 2006, beginning casual shifts with Sky News Australia four days later.

Spicer, for now, is currently a fill-in presenter on Sky News Australia.

She is also a regular columnist with the Daily Telegraph newspaper, the punch.com.au website, and regular contributor to Holidays with Kids,^[5] Signature Magazine Travel and Lifestyle ^[6] Spa Life, Sunday Telegraph, House & Garden, Go Camping and WeightWatchers' magazine.

Philanthropy

Tracey is an Ambassador for World Vision, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the Queensland University of Technology's Learning Potential Fund and the Penguin Foundation, and Patron of the NSW Cancer Council, the newborn care unit at the Royal Hospital for Women, the Life's Little Treasures Foundation ^[7] and the National Premmie Foundation.

She is an Ambassador for Dying with Dignity, and is the face of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research’s research into pancreatic cancer, the disease responsible for her mother's death.^[8]

References

External links

• Tracey Spicer's official website
• Biography of Tracey Spicer
• Tracey Spicer's profile on Who's Who of Australian Women