Australian journalist and broadcaster Michael Charlton, best known as the first presenter of the landmark current affairs program Four Corners, has died aged 98.
His passing was noted in a recent death notice in the Telegraph, which stated he “died at home aged 98 on 24th August 2025. He was a journalist with the BBC and before that a cricket commentator and journalist with the ABC in Australia.”
Born in Sydney, Charlton went on to have a long and distinguished career in television current affairs in the UK. He reported for the BBC’s Panorama for more than a decade during the 1960s and 70s, and later hosted the network’s phone-in program It’s Your World throughout the 1980s.
In Australia, he remained most closely associated with Four Corners, becoming its inaugural presenter when the show premiered in 1961.
His work on the program’s first season earned him a Gold Logie in 1963, making him one of the earliest recipients of the award, just three years after Graham Kennedy received the first.
Charlton was also part of another milestone in Australian broadcasting history; in November 1956, shortly before the Melbourne Olympic Games, he was the first person to greet viewers when the ABC officially went to air.
He stepped back from television in the mid-1980s, following the success of the acclaimed ABC documentary series Out of the Fiery Furnace, a seven-part production exploring the history of metals and minerals that was screened in more than 20 countries worldwide.
The cause of his death has not yet been made public.
Images: ABC
