ABC host Michael Rowland has hinted at a departure from News Breakfast is on his mind due to the demanding schedule and the weight news stories are bearing on his mental health.
Speaking to Virginia Trioli on her podcast You Don’t Know Me, Rowland was asked about ‘The thing he can’t stop thinking about …’
“A less intense work life,” he replied.
“I have been doing this job for 14 years, and it does take a toll. I don’t need to talk to you too long to know the effect it had on you.”
“Absolutely, you’re looking at the case study,” Trioli replied.
“I’m getting older, the ripe old age of 55 this year. The toll it takes gets more pronounced every year, the hours, the horrible stories we have to cover as journalists presenting a news program,” Rowland continued.
“I find it is taking more of a toll on me, personally, on my family life, and I’m looking forward to something less intense.
“I hasten to say I love the show. I’m not about to do anything rash. I really love what I’m doing at the moment, but I’m much closer to the end than I am to the beginning in doing this show and doing this intense news presenting work.
“What that less intense job will be, hopefully with the ABC in some capacity, I don’t know. But I’m just looking forward to a stage somewhere down the track in the near future, doing something different.”
Rowland noted he had not commenced any exit conversations with management as yet, while Trioli, his former News Breakfast co-host, acknowledged the duress of grim news in breakfast television.
“You and I had a particular run of tragedies, just constant tragedies, where the show would start if we had something very serious to report, standing up at the wall,” she said. “That wall became sort of almost a triggering device for, ‘Oh, Lord, what terrible thing has happened to the world?”
‘The wall of doom,” Rowland acknowledged.
“You get more porous as you get older,” said Trioli.
“You do. It never gets easier. We talked about a pretty distressing domestic violence case this morning on the show, and that sort of thing gets me as well. I’m getting emotional. I’m sorry,” Rowland revealed.
He continued, “It does get harder, and I think I pull it off each morning as much as I can, being a dispassionate news anchor presenting these horrible stories, as you did. We had a really bad run when we were presenting with terrorist attacks. I’ll always remember in all the wrong ways, the morning we were on when MH 17 was shot down over Ukraine.”
“Never forget it,” Trioli agreed.
“That was an awful morning and an awful days and weeks afterwards.,” said Rowland, “But on the bright side, and sorry for being such a mood killer, the good thing about breakfast TV is you present all these horrible stories but there’s the cooking segment, the movies…”
“There’s Jimmy Barnes,” Trioli added.
“There’s Jimmy Barnes to talk about as well, to help even things up,” he replied.
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