Max Uechtritz has the unique distinction in his country’s media of running the largest news operations in both public Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and Nine Network Australia. Uechtritz was the ABC’s Executive Director of News and Current Affairs (2000-2004) then Network Director of News (2004-2005) at Channel Nine. He has since moved to the digital space (Nov 2006) and is currently Editor in Chief of Australia’s leading web publisher Ninemsn - jointly owned by PBL Media and Microsoft - in charge of its suite of news, current affairs, sport and finance sites. At the ABC, Uechtritz managed one of the larger and more diverse newsgathering operations in international broadcasting – all news and current affairs programs and staff across ABC television, radio and online and on the satellite television network ABC Asia Pacific.
This included responsibility for 750 journalists in 58 domestic bureaus and 13 foreign bureaus with a budget of $126 million. Uechtritz also sat on the three-person Board which ran the International Broadcasting Division, incorporating ABC Asia-Pacific television network and Radio Australia. Heading up National Nine News, Uechtritz oversaw the network’s news product and staff – for the Today show, 11am, 4.30pm, flagship 6pm bulletins, Nightline and Sunday. He left Nine in July 2005 to be a media consultant on mainly international projects. During this time he was involved in the embryonic planning stages of the pan-African 24-hour news and information channel A24. He spent much of 2006 contracted to Canada’s national broadcaster CBC, advising on the restructuring and assimilation of CBC’s international television, radio and online news operations Before his management career, Uechtritz was an ABC foreign correspondent, reporting from more than 30 countries on five continents, covering first hand some of recent history’s major events. These include the Tiananmen Square massacre, first Gulf War, Soviet coup attempt , Russian White House siege, Bosnian war and Croatian, Slovenian and Kosovo conflicts, German Reunification, Nelson Mandela’s election, Bill Clinton’s re-election, demise of Margaret Thatcher and the Barcelona and Atlanta Olympics. Uechtritz is a two-time winner of the Walkley Award – Australia’s most prestigious journalism prize – and four times a finalist. He has also won Television Penguin and Gold Thorn awards and the Bicentennial Pater Award for Investigative Reporting. Uechtritz was a recipient of the Centenary Medal, awarded by the Governor General and Prime Minister, for services to news and current affairs in Australia. He was a member of the founding Advisory Board of the Brussels-based International News Safety Institute (INSI) and has sat on the Advisory Board for the CEW Bean Foundation, which promotes the work of Australian war historians and correspondents, since 2003.
