Bridget Brennan is newsreader and co-host of News Breakfast. She was previously the ABC’s Indigenous Affairs Editor, Europe Correspondent in London and the National Indigenous Affairs Correspondent. She’s covered Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities for more than a decade and is a Dja Dja Wurrung and Yorta Yorta woman.
Brennan joined the ABC as a cadet journalist in 2010. From 2011 to 2013, she was based in Darwin where she worked as a radio and television reporter.
After a brief period of working in Hong Kong for CNN, Brennan returned to the ABC in 2014 as a reporter for national radio current affairs programs AM, The World Today and PM.
After then working as on Background Briefing on Radio National, Brennan joined Four Corners as a researcher.
After being awarded the 2016 Andrew Olle scholarship, Brennan became the ABC’s national Indigenous Affairs correspondent. This was a role she continued until she was appointed as the ABC’s London-based Europe correspondent. She returned to Australia in 2020 and was appointed as the ABC’s Indigenous Affairs editor.
On 14 June 2020, Brennan seemingly became the first non-white panelist on ABC TV’s Sunday morning current affairs program Insiders.The invitation to appear on Insiders was issued after criticism the program received, including from Brennan, for having an all-white panel (consisting of Patricia Karvelas, David Crowe and Katharine Murphy) discuss the Black Lives Matter movement the week prior. Junkee also reported that it appeared the show had never had a person of colour appear as a panelist in the history of Insiders. When asked about the issue on Insiders, Brennan stated: “It is not good enough any more, particularly at this moment, but I would say any week, to have a panel of white people speaking about issues when there is very little lived experience of discrimination and racism on that panel.
Brennan hosted the summer edition of The Drum throughout December 2021 and January 2022.
Along with Dan Bourchier, Brennan co-hosted a special edition of Speaking Up on the ABC News channel about the Uluru Statement from the Heart and the Indigenous Voice to Parliament on 6 July 2022.
Following Leigh Sales’ decision to step down from hosting 7.30 in 2022, Brennan was reported to be one of three ABC journalists approached by senior ABC management about potentially succeeding Sales on the program, with the others being Sarah Ferguson and David Speers.
In November 2023, ABC announced that Brennan will join News Breakfast as news presenter and co-host the show one day per week whilst Lisa Millar works on other projects.
