Pamela Bone

Pamela was a columnist and associate editor of the Age, one of Australia's most respected newspapers. She began work as a journalist at the Shepparton News (in Victoria) in 1980 and joined the Age in 1982. She received many awards for her journalism, including a United Nations Media Peace prize, an award from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, an award from Results Australia for writing on issues of poverty and hunger, and an award from the New South Wales Office of the Status of Women for her writing on women's affairs. She twice received the Melbourne Press Club's Quill Award for best newspaper columnist. She travelled widely in developing countries, and was persuaded on humanitarian grounds of the justice of the Iraq War. In September 2002, she went to southern Africa to research an article on famine and AIDS, and coordinated an appeal by the Age that raised more than $1 million.

In 2008, after a long period of remission from multiple myeloma, during which she completed a book about her diagnosis called Bad Hair Days, and began another on Muslim women, Bone's condition suddenly and rapidly deteriorated, and within a week she had passed away.