Chris Reason

Reason's career began in 1990, when during his first year at Seven News he unwittingly covered a segment now known as the Democracy Manifest video which became an Internet viral video decades later.[1] In 2019, The Guardian called it "perhaps the pre-eminent Australian meme of the past 10 years".[2]

In 2002, he was announced as co-host of the re-launched national breakfast program Sunrise alongside Melissa Doyle. But in September, Reason was diagnosed with cancer and forced to retire from the program while he underwent six months of chemotherapy, surgery and recovery care.[3] He was replaced by David Koch. The cancer was an abdominal metastasis of the testicular cancer he had fought four years earlier. Reason had missed a critical health check-up in 2001 while covering the September 11 terror attacks in the United States, and he says it almost cost him his life. In multiple interviews since, he has warned young men to never miss a health check-up.[3]

In 2003, after his recovery, Reason had multiple roles - first as presenter of Seven Morning News, then in 2004, presenter of Sunday Sunrise. In 2005, he was named co-host of Weekend Sunrise alongside Lisa Wilkinson, but was later replaced by Deal or No Deal host Andrew O'Keefe. Reason returned to full-time reporting as Senior Network Correspondent.

While reporting for Seven News, Reason covered the Boxing Day tsunami in Thailand and then Banda Aceh; the Fukushima nuclear disaster; Barack Obama's election; Nelson Mandela's funeral; the September 11 attacks; the 7/7 London terror attacks; the East Timor independence transition in 1999; Princess Diana's funeral; Schapelle Corby's sentencing; the Hong Kong handover; the Oscar Pistorius trial; the Kobe earthquake; the 2000 Fiji Coup; the 1997 Thredbo landslide; the Beaconsfield mine disaster; and Prince William and Catherine's wedding. He has covered multiple Federal and State elections and eight Olympic Games.

In 2015, he won the Graham Perkin Award for his coverage. The award recognised Reason's coverage of the Lindt Cafe siege.[4] He has won a Walkley Award and two Logie Awards for News Reporting.

Reason is a back-up presenter for most of the Seven News programs, including Seven Morning News, Seven Afternoon News and Seven News Sydney. In November 2016, he filled in for regular presenter David Koch on Sunrise.

His father died from brain cancer in 2006.[3] He attended Villanova College in the Brisbane suburb of Coorparoo and the University of Queensland (BA). Reason married journalist Kathryn Robinson in 2005.[3] They became parents to twins[3] in 2007.

• Seven News website
• https://web.archive.org/web/20091005065545/http://www.claxtonspeakers.com.au/speakers_profile/915