Leila McKinnon is a true trailblazer. She started as a junior reporter in Rockhampton in Queensland, where she would “ask politicians questions and they would answer the cameraman, because [as a woman] they couldn’t look me in the eye”. Stints in Cairns, the Gold Coast and working for A Current Affair in Brisbane followed before she joined Nine’s newsroom in Sydney in 2002. Now, she’s one of the most recognisable faces on our screens – having interviewed royalty, Hollywood stars and Australia’s elite, and hit the road as a foreign correspondent to cover the biggest stories on the agenda.

In the first of our partnerships with Domain to highlight trailblazing women, Leila talked surviving toxic news room culture, the stories that have stayed with her and why wishes she was Beyoncé last week in Sydney. Here are our favourite takeaways.

On surviving toxic news room culture:

“I think I just operated as an honorary bloke. I am quote a blokey person. I just regarded myself as one of the men, and even though it was a blokey culture, I didn’t feel discriminated against. I mean yes I did, you couldn’t have a child or do things that you can now but day-to-day I was one of the guys. And by the way it was a brutal horrible culture to men. I saw men go into terrible addiction or break downs because it was a horrible culture in general.”