Sally Neighbour is an award-winning investigative journalist, editorial leader and author who has reported extensively on Australian and international politics, global affairs, terrorism, Islamist extremism and security related issues. 

 

Sally is a former Executive Producer of Australia's premier public affairs television program, Four Corners, a role she held for seven years from 2015 until May 2022. In November 2022, she was honored with the Walkley Award for Outstanding Contribution to Journalism. This was Sally's fourth Walkley award for excellence in journalism. Her previous roles include Executive Producer of the ABC's nightly current affairs flagship program, 7.30; foreign correspondent based in Hong Kong and Beijing; investigative reporter for Four Corners; and freelance contributor for The Australian newspaper and The Monthly magazine.

 

In 2009, Sally published 'The Mother of Mohammed: An Australian woman's extraordinary Journey into Jihad', with Melbourne University Publishing.  It tells the remarkable story of Muslim convert Rabiah Hutchinson, who grew up in Mudgee, New South Wales, and later spent twenty years on the frontline of the global Islamist struggle in Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt and Afghanistan, where she married a senior al Qaeda strategist, Mustafa Hamid. 

Sally's first book was 'In the Shadow of Swords: On the Trail of Terrorism from Afghanistan to Australia', published by Harper Collins in 2004, which examines the rise of the Indonesian Islamist group, Jemaah Islamiyah, and its role in the 2002 Bali bombings and subsequent terrorist attacks. It won the 2005 NSW History Prize, and was named by The Economist magazine as one of the 'best books' of 2005.

 

In 2012, Sally edited 'The Stories that Changed Australia: Fifty Years of Four Corners', published by ABC Books. She has spoken and lectured at courses and conferences around the world, as a guest of the Australian National University, the University of Sydney, the Royal Australian Naval College, the New South Wales Police, the Australian Institute of International Affairs, the United States Deputy Director of Intelligence for Analysis, the US Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Centre for Excellence for National Security in Singapore, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. She is currently a freelance reporter, editor, film-maker and author, based in Sydney.