meet the team
NewsSunday NightDenham Hitchcock
Denham is a senior reporter who has been with Sunday Night since 2014. Back home there’s been a series of full program reports including an undercover story with the NSW Police Child Exploitation unit tracking down the country’s worst paedophiles, and a major investigation into the death of a young cheerleader on the Gold Coast that caused a re-evaluation of the entire police case. While he is at his best in crucial sit down interviews and high pressure situations, you will also see him suspended from bridges, riding a racehorse at full gallop, surfing with Kelly Slater, at the bottom of a human tower in Spain, getting into the ring with UFC fighters, riding a mountain bike down the death road in Bolivia, or even spending the day with Phil Collins or superstar Margot Robbie.
EntertainmentSunday NightAlex Cullen
Alex has interviewed some of the world’s biggest stars, and covered some of the world’s biggest news, current affairs and sporting events travelling to all corners of the globe from Vanuatu to Alaska, Vietnam to Cuba. Alex has been a journalist for the last 16 years covering such diverse stories as Doomsday Soldiers in Alaska, the last of the pygmy elephants in Borneo, the Christchurch earthquake, China’s abandoned children, the world’s deadliest sinkholes, Vietnam’s illegal bear-bile trade, the world’s most dangerous downhill bike race in Chile and a story much closer to home for Alex, the worst drought in Australia’s history which involved his family on their farm at Coonamble in north-west NSW. Alex enjoys sitting down with some of the world’s biggest stars and ‘just having a yarn’ as he calls it.
EntertainmentSunday NightSteve Pennells
After a stint with the Nine Network and four years freelancing in Europe, he returned to ‘The West’ as chief writer – a roving local and foreign brief which saw him dropped at short notice into trouble spots around the world. The role took him to Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Pakistan, China, Europe, the US and across South-East Asia, and included lengthy assignments covering the tsunami, earthquakes, natural disasters and terrorism across Asia and Africa. In 2012, he received Australia’s highest journalism honour – the Gold Walkley Award – for his stories from the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan and reports on Gina Rinehart’s battle with her children, an investigation which also saw him embroiled in a lengthy legal battle with the mining magnate.
NewsSunday NightMatt Doran
Matt began his journalistic career in newspapers, as a crime reporter with Melbourne’s Herald Sun. Prior to his move stateside, Matt reported for and anchored a number of national news, crime and public affairs programs, including Network Ten’s Wanted and The Project. “It’s an enormous honour to join the ranks at Sunday Night, which in my opinion is setting the benchmark for long-form journalism in Australia.
