In a move that’s perhaps fitting for her and her alone, walking human icon Lee Lin Chin has apparently revealed she is quitting the SBS, with her last stint behind the desk at World News set to be this coming Sunday. Apparently, we stress repeatedly.
The Jakarta-born newsreader and journalist revealed she’ll be bringing her 40+ year career with the SBS to a close by the end of the week in an interview with Sandra Sully on TenDaily a short time ago.
The interview reveals little about her actual reasoning for walking away from the role she’s made her own, having been the central face and figure of World News since 1992. However it does maintain the signature bone-dry humour that’s endeared her to practically all Australians, leading us to believe Lee Lin Chin is not so much going out graciously as she is more striding out of the building like a goddamned Queen.
There’s not one big reason, there’s many small to medium-sized reasons, which for the time being I wish to keep to myself but may talk about one day. One reason I shall reveal however is that working two days a week didn’t give me enough time to devote to the pub and re-reading the complete works of Shakespeare. So now that I work zero days that issue has been addressed.
Yeah look your guess is as good as ours here.
Among the many accolades Chin accumulated throughout her career, a nomination for the Gold Logie in 2016 was significant not only because she scored it as a newsreader, but because it was the SBS’s first ever nomination for the top prize.
Her surprisingly impeccable comedic timing was also put on display in recent years thanks to a hysterically good Twitter account (largely co-authored by comedy writer and collaborator Chris Leben) and to repeated appearances on The Feed.
But for those of you howling at the thought of an Australian media landscape without Lee Lin Chin in it, fear not. She’s adamant that she’s not retiring, merely quitting instead.
Retirement is death and I don’t plan to die anytime soon.
Hell fucken yeah, Lee Lin Chin.
You can read the entire deeply, deeply weird interview with the one and only via this link. Why TenDaily scored the scoop on this one and not SBS themselves is anyone’s guess at this point, but we sit and wait expectedly nonetheless.
Lee Lin Chin’s final SBS World News broadcast, apparently, takes place this Sunday at 6:30pm.
