AUSTRALIAN of the Year Ita Buttrose wants to promote a more positive approach to ageing by tackling community attitudes toward older people.
The 71-year-old was on Friday honoured at a ceremony in Canberra for her extraordinary and groundbreaking media career and role in raising awareness of health and media issues.
Ms Buttrose said she was honoured to follow in the footsteps of so many distinguished Australians.
"This is one of the proudest moments of my life," she said, her voice quavering slightly.
"How wonderful to be honoured for doing something that I've thoroughly enjoyed doing for most of my life - being a journalist and working for causes for which I have a genuine passion and commitment."
Born in Sydney's Potts Point, Ms Buttrose began her career as a 15-year-old copy girl at The Australian Women's Weekly, before scoring a spot as a cadet journalist on the women's section at the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph. She was appointed women's editor of the newspapers aged 23.
But it was as founding editor of Cleo magazine that she shot to national prominence in the 1970s.
Cleo was an instant hit, becoming the top selling monthly women's magazine in the country.
Three years later she was appointed editor of The Women's Weekly.
In 1980 she became the first woman editor of an Australian metropolitan newspaper - the Murdoch-owned Daily Telegraph, and later the Sunday Telegraph.
Ms Buttrose was the first woman appointed to the News Limited Board in 1981 and last year she was the subject of a TV drama, Paper Giants.
Ms Buttrose has used her prominence to raise awareness of health issues such as breast cancer, HIV/AIDS and prostate cancer.
She now plans to tackle the issue of ageing and promote preventative health.
"I believe preventative health strategies need to begin in childhood and followed all through life," Ms Buttrose said.
She has been national president of Alzheimer's Australia since 2011 and is also vice president emeritus of Arthritis Australia.
Alzheimer's Australia applauded her commitment to improving the quality of life of people with dementia.
"We can beat dementia, we can remove the stigma and the sense of shame that comes with diagnosis if we increase community understanding," Ms Buttrose said.
"I look forward to many more years to contributing what I can towards the health challenges facing our country."
Ms Buttrose's children Kate and Ben Macdonald were in the audience to see their mother honoured at the Canberra ceremony.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard said considering it had been some time since a woman last won the award, it was nice to see Ms Buttrose bag the honour.
Women like Ms Buttrose had helped advance the role of women in the workplace, and Ms Gillard said she herself had much to be thankful for as Australia's first female prime minister.
"It's only possible for me to be here in this position because I'm standing on the shoulders of women who have come before," Ms Gillard told ABC Radio.
"And I'd like to hope that me doing this position will make a difference for the women to come."
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