On Wonder World
Anita Jacoby's television career began behind the desk, not in front of the camera. After a first job in children's television in Ballarat, she joined Wonder World in 1981 as a researcher and writer, one of the people who worked out what each story was really about before a reporter picked up a microphone.
Townsend took the journalism on his children's show seriously, and the people who learned the craft there tended to keep going. Jacoby was one of them.
After Wonder World
She moved into news at NBN in Newcastle, then into breakfast television, and through the late 1980s and into the 1990s she produced stories for 60 Minutes. She produced John Laws's interview program for Foxtel, which landed a world exclusive with the fugitive businessman Christopher Skase, and she built a reputation as one of the most respected producers in the country.
From 2003 she ran production and development alongside Andrew Denton at Zapruder's Other Films, the company behind Enough Rope, The Gruen Transfer and a long list of other programs. She later became managing director of ITV Studios Australia, where she commissioned formats including I'm a Celebrity and The Chase, and in 2022 she published a memoir, Secrets Beyond the Screen. She was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2019 for her service to media and to community mental health.
