Helen McCabe has resigned as editor-in-chief of the Australian Women’s Weekly after six years in the high-profile role at the nation’s highest-selling magazine.
The former News Corp Australia journalist and Channel Seven reporter joined the magazine world in 2009 after a stint as deputy editor of the Sunday Telegraph and high-level roles on the Australian.
McCabe has grabbed some headlines of her own for some of the editorial choices she made at the magazine, once owned by Kerry Packer but now owned by German publishers Bauer Media.
The news of her resignation came on the same day as Bauer announced it was outsourcing the printing and distribution of all its magazines which would see about 100 staff made redundant.
McCabe is the latest senior editorial figure to leave the company, following the departure of CEO David Goodchild and sales chief Tony Kendall in recent months.
She was praised for using her Andrew Olle address late last year to call on the media to keep the spotlight on domestic violence.
“I am old enough to remember being on the midnight to dawn shift when an assault in a home could easily be dismissed as ‘just a domestic’,” McCabe said. “When neighbours didn’t ‘get involved’. I urge you all to be vigilant, long after it is fashionable, to keep these stories central to your newslists.”
But she found herself a target for criticism when she published a highly stylised photograph of former prime minister Julia Gillard knitting a kangaroo in the same week as Kevin Rudd challenged her for the leadership.
“It got even worse because the PM’s office tried to claim it was a stitch-up, we were trying to set her up,” she later told Mumbrella. “Then they claimed we came up with the idea of the knitted kangaroo, then we released the emails proving it wasn’t us, it was them. It just turned to a mess.”
In 2014 the magazine was bombarded with angry comments from readers after publishing an eight-page interview and glamorous photo shoot with the former lover of murderer Gerard Baden-Clay, Toni McHugh, who was paid for the interview in a joint deal between Nine’s 60 Minutes and the Women’s Weekly.
More recently McCabe chose to put “Understanding the case against marriage equality” – an argument against same-sex marriage – on the cover.
Publisher Matthew Dominello said McCabe had “decided to leave the company to pursue other interests” and her successor was yet to be named.
In a statement McCabe thanked Dominello, Bauer Media and CEO Yvonne Bauer but gave no indication where she is going to work next.
“Editing the Australian Women’s Weekly is one of the truly great honours in Australian publishing,” McCabe said in a statement.
“But after six-and-a-half years it is the right time to move. Thank you to the readers and to all the people who have trusted me to help tell their stories. And finally thank you to the talented AWW team. You are the best.”
The company praised McCabe’s tenure and singled out her coverage of burns victim Turia Pitt and Australian of the Year Rosie Batty, along with the launch of the Women of the Future scholarship program.
“Helen has been a well-respected and important contributor to our business and one of Australia’s longest standing publications. I would like to thank her for her dedication and wish her all the very best for the future,” Dominello said.
