Mark Whittaker is the investigative journalist and presenter of season three of SBS’s True Stories podcast.
He is a freelance writer based on the NSW South Coast. He began his career as a copy person at News Ltd in 1985, then worked as a general reporter on the Australian newspaper.
He worked as a staff writer for the Weekend Australian magazine from 1993 to 2000, when he left to spend a year travelling around Australia with his wife Amy Willesee. Their travels culminated in a book – The Road to Mount Buggery – about Australia’s colourful place names.
After co-authoring several more books, he returned to the Weekend Australian magazine in 2005, winning the Walkley Award for magazine feature writing in that year for a story about the ordinary people who ran into a burning childcare centre to save the children inside.
In 2007, he left Sydney for a small property near Berry. He continues to have more success wrestling with his words than wrangling his Murray Grey cattle and Wiltshire Horn sheep.