Ita Buttrose

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. 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.

Buttrose was chair of the National Advisory Committee on AIDS (NACAIDS) from 1984 until 1988. 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). 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.

After her stint with News Limited, Buttrose founded her own publishing company, Capricorn Publishing, and launched her own magazine, Ita, in 1989. Due to the recession and a decline in monthly sales the publication eventually folded and she launched a new company, the Good Life Publishing Company, which in 2005 published bark!, a lifestyle magazine aimed at dog owners.

Buttrose utilised the services of celebrity agent Max Markson to assist her with publicity and promotion.

At 21 years of age, Buttrose married architect Alasdair "Mac" Macdonald and had two children.

In 1975, while editing The Australian Women's Weekly, her marriage to Macdonald broke down and the couple divorced in 1976. Later she met Peter Sawyer and they married in 1979. By her own account it was "not a very happy marriage"; Sawyer left in 1980 and they subsequently divorced.

Buttrose cared for her father after he was diagnosed with vascular dementia. He died in 1999.

In his 2007 book Who Killed Channel Nine?, former Nine Network producer Gerald Stone claimed that Buttrose and Kerry Packer conducted a private but intense affair during Buttrose's tenure on Cleo. Stone also claimed that Packer even offered to marry her but she rejected the idea and they split after a "blazing row". Buttrose herself has repeatedly declined to comment on the matter.

In 2023 Buttrose was implicated in a controversy concerning the dismissal of ABC Radio Sydney presenter Antoinette Lattouf. Her truthfulness and her understanding of protocol and procedure at the ABC was challenged when Federal Court Justice Darryl Rangiah ordered the ABC to pay Lattouf $70,000 following the illegal actions of the ABC, Buttrose and several staff members. In response to a campaign of a WhatsApp group, Buttrose applied pressure to Lattouf's manager to have her dismissed, a claim that was explicitly reinforced by Justice Rangiah's Federal Court condemnation of the ABC's capitulation to “pro-Israel lobbyists” who had specifically used Buttrose to “cancel” Lattouf.

During Federal Court proceedings, private communications and an affidavit by ABC Managing Director David Anderson indicated that Buttrose had intervened in the termination process. The documents revealed that she pressured senior executives to remove Lattouf and forwarded several complaints by lobbyists to Chief Content Officer Chris Oliver-Taylor—allegedly bypassing the broadcaster's standard disciplinary procedures. Buttrose described Lattouf as an "activist" and the Court found she "wanted Ms Lattouf gone as soon as possible." While the Federal Court found Buttrose "placed pressure" on Oliver-Taylor to dismiss Lattouf, she did “not materially contribute” to the decision.

Critics have argued that such interventions by senior ABC management could undermine internal governance and editorial independence, and the ABC's management faced criticism for its handling over Lattouf's dismissal. The ABC had maintained until the trial's conclusion that Lattouf's dismissal adhered to its internal policies and defended the actions of Buttrose, Oliver-Taylor and David Anderson, but was later retracted in an apology by Managing Director Hugh Marks who acknowledged that “many millions of dollars have been spent that shouldn’t have been spent” and that “the matter was not handled in line with our values and expectations”.

In the UNSW Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA) National Webinar Event Unapologetically Ita: In Conversation with Professor Henry Brodaty AO on 18 November 2025, while promoting her autobiography, Unapologetically Ita, Buttrose made the following statements about immigration in Australia: “Well, I think we’re more divided. I don’t think the multicultural society that we’ve spoken about so proudly in Australia is working as well as it could be. And that’s because we’ve allowed divisive groups to come into Australia. But – and that’s fine. I mean, we need all points of view, but this is Australia. So I think we have to be emphatic that you try and live our way, not the way you did when you were in the country that you left to become an Australian, because most people that do come here do end up taking our citizenship.”