Ita Clare Buttrose (born 17 January 1942) is an Australian journalist, former magazine/ newspaper editor, publishing executive, television network executive chairperson and television and radio personality, advocate, author.
Historian, Dr Lauren Samuelsson describes Buttrose as 'most powerful woman in Australian media and a household name' from 1972 to 1999.
In 1972, Buttrose was the founding editor of Cleo, a high-circulation magazine aimed at women aged 20 to 40 that was frank about sexuality (introduced liberal feminist ideas and, in its infancy, featured nude male centrefolds) and, later, the editor of the more conventional the Australian Women's Weekly. She was the youngest person to be appointed editor of The Weekly, which was then, per capita, the largest-selling magazine in the world.
Buttrose was the first woman to be editor in chief for a major Australian metropolitan newspaper, The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph (1981 - 1984) and to join the News Limited board, chaired the National Advisory Committee on AIDS (NACAIDS) from 1984 till 1988.
In 2013, Buttrose was named the 2013 Australian of the Year.
Buttrose was a panellist on the Network Ten morning program Studio 10 from 2013 until 2018.
In 2019, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Buttrose as the new chair of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). She served a five-year tenure and was succeeded by Kim Williams in March 2024.
Buttrose's tenure faced criticism for her involvement in the unlawful termination of ABC Radio Sydney presenter Antoinette Lattouf in 2023.
Buttrose was born on 17 January 1942 in Potts Point, Sydney, and named after her maternal grandmother, Ita Clare Rodgers (née Rosenthal), pronounced (rhyming with 'fighter'). She has Jewish ancestry on her maternal side. She was raised as a Catholic by her parents. Buttrose's father, Charles Oswald Buttrose, was a journalist and at one time the editor of The Daily Mirror in Sydney. By her own account she had decided on a career in journalism at the age of 11. Buttrose spent her first five years in New York City when her father was the New York correspondent for The Daily Mirror. The family returned to Australia in 1949 and settled in the harbourside suburb of Vaucluse. Her parents divorced during her teens, after 25 years of marriage, and details of her father's private life were printed in the tabloid press, causing considerable anguish to her mother. Buttrose briefly attended a private school but because her father could not afford the fees she was then moved to a public school. She completed her secondary education at Dover Heights Home Science High School, leaving at 15 to begin her career.
She started her career at Australian Consolidated Press, owned by the Packer family, working as a copy girl at The Australian Women's Weekly, then became a cadet journalist on The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph in Sydney. Her first byline came in 1959 when the 17-year-old covered the Australian tour by Princess Alexandra.
Buttrose was appointed women's editor of the Telegraph at just 23 years old. In 1966 she won a racetrack fashion contest run by a rival newspaper, for which the first prize was an overseas trip, including a visit to Expo 67 in Montreal. Buttrose and her husband then stopped in England in 1967 where she worked for a time on the British national magazine Woman's Own before giving birth to her first child, a daughter, Kate. It was after her daughter's birth that she received a telegram from Sir Frank Packer, head of Australian Consolidated Press, offering her back her former job as women's editor at the Telegraph. The family then returned to Australia.
In 1971, Buttrose was chosen as founding editor of a new Australian women's magazine. This was originally intended as an Australian edition of the American magazine Cosmopolitan, but the deal fell through after Hearst Magazines sold the Cosmopolitan rights to longtime Packer rivals Fairfax; so Packer and Buttrose set about creating a new publication, dubbed Cleo, which they launched in 1972 several months ahead of its rival. Cleo was an instant hit, selling its entire original print run in just two days; the magazine broke new ground in Australian mainstream publishing, featuring the first nude male centrefold (actor Jack Thompson) and frank articles on female sexuality and other topics, leading to the inclusion of the first sealed section in an Australian magazine.
Lecturer at University of Sydney, Dr Megan Le Masurier describes Cleo as a platform ‘To speak to women about gender inequality and to find solutions for their lived experiences of injustice in their personal and public lives.’ Postdoctoral research fellow Dr Kate Farhall (RMIT) states ‘Cleo’s content was quite distinct from its contemporary format. Social commentary pieces such as ‘Rape - and how women can stop it,’ ‘Lesbian mothers’ and ‘Jewish women in the 70s’.Therefore, as the first Australian publicly accepted magazine of second wave feminism, Buttrose's influence of the direction of Cleo was essential to educate and create awareness of the everyday inequalities women faced in the 1970s.
During the early months of the magazine, Buttrose became pregnant with her second child, Ben, but with the grudging support of the Packers she worked through her pregnancy; an unusual feat for that time as it was still common for women to have to give up work permanently after they became pregnant.
Buttrose edited Cleo until 1975, when she was appointed editor of the Packers' flagship magazine, The Australian Women's Weekly (1975–76). She then became editor-in-chief of both publications from 1976 to 1978, before being appointed publisher of Australian Consolidated Press Women's Division from 1978 to 1981. In 1981, she left the Packers after their rival Rupert Murdoch offered her the job of editor-in-chief of the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, making her the first female editor of a major metropolitan newspaper in Australia, a position she held until 1984; she was also appointed to the board of News Limited. During the period 1982-1983 she also had her own weekend radio talk back show simply titled Ita for the 2UE radio station. She made frequent appearances on radio and TV and in 1980, her media prominence led to her becoming the subject of the song "Ita", recorded by rock band Cold Chisel, which was included on their successful East album.
In 1984, when addressing National Press Club (Australia) she stated ‘I am also equally aware that female executives of newspapers and magazine companies … earn nowhere near the salaries … the male executives get.’ This exemplifies her honest views on pay equality and the inequality she faced as a women at the in the industry at the time.
Buttrose was invited to chair of the National Advisory Committee on AIDS (NACAIDS) from then Health Minister Neal Blewett, from 1984 until 1988 to use her skills as a communicator in breaking down homophobia and prejudice surrounding the hysteria of the disease. The committees role included national HIV/AIDS education programs and public awareness advertisements such as the controversial but successful Grim Reaper commercial. On one occasion, she appeared personally in a nationwide TV campaign to explain that donating blood at a blood bank did not pose a risk of catching AIDS (the fear of which had caused a significant drop in donations). In 1988, Buttrose also was the presenter on SBS-TV for three limited documentaries on about the effect of AIDS on the country, socially, medical spheres and the personal effect the disease has for all Australians. She later chaired the AIDS Trust of Australia from 1990 -94.
During the mid- to late 1980s, she also had a regular weekly "Ask Ita" page for the magazine Woman's Day which gave readers advice on personal issues.