Rahni Sadler (born 1972) is an Australian reporter and television journalist. She is sister of Matthew Sadler[1] who is a TV and radio presenter and journalist for the ABC.[2] Brother Vernon Sadler is a social worker in a remote aboriginal community.
Sadler's maternal grandmother Joyce Robertson was editor of rural NSW newspaper The Coonamble Times.
Sadler had “always wanted to be a journalist” and eventually in 1993, after doing work experience in radio landed a job at WIN TV, the Channel 9 affiliate in Canberra. She said she got the job when a “journalist I had had lunch with for half an hour remembered me and recommended me” to someone at the station. Her break as a correspondent in the Parliament press gallery came in 1997. She nearly missed out on the job because she was covering the Thredbo landslide for Win News on the day of her job interview with Channel 7. Rahni approached Channel 7's Bureau Chief Glenn Milne on the side of the Thredbo Mountain and he agreed to reschedule.
Sadler was a reporter for Channel 7 in Sydney until she switched to Network Ten in 2003 where she became a correspondent in the channels' Los Angeles Bureau. Channel 7 poached her back in February 2007, although this time in its Los Angeles Bureau.[3] She controversially replaced Channel 7's Los Angeles Correspondent Louise Pennell, who was informed of her impending replacement by the Bureau's Chief Cameraman Trent Miller.[1] Trent knew what was going on because he was Rahni's boyfriend. Trent was forced to reveal the details to Louise after another member of Seven's L.A. Bureau told her accidentally. Louise launched legal action and later reached an out-of-court settlement.[4]
Rahni is noted for her enthusiastic coverage of the inauguration of US President Barack Obama from Washington in January 2009. http://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/b/sunrise/21499/rahnis-obamania/
In 1995 Rahni directed Sydney University's first Arts Review alongside Chaser members Craig Reucassel, Andrew Hansen and Charles Firth as well as media personality Adam Spencer.
Salder has recently returned from the US and has taken up the position of a reporter on Seven's Sunday Night.[5] She is also a fill in presenter for Samantha Armytage on Weekend Sunrise.
Sadler attended Santa Sabina College in the Sydney suburb of Strathfield, a day school for girls K-12. She completed a Bachelor of Arts degree at Sydney University, participating in the Honours program in the Political Science (Government) Department.
Sadler had an early inquisitive mind for news and politics and is reported as saying the following with references to the sacking of the 1975 Whitlam government. "The first time I heard about 1975 was when I was standing in a lift. I was seven and we were going to Singapore and we were getting our injections and mum whispered ‘That’s the man that sacked the Prime Minister,’ and I said ‘Oh, so?’ It meant nothing to me, mum said ‘Oh, that’s Sir John Kerr.’ And I remember for years it played on my mind: ‘How could you possibly sack the Prime Minister?'"[6]
Rahni married Channel 7's LA Bureau cameraman Trent Miller in Lorne, Victoria in December 2008. She and Miller split in December 2009 two weeks after surviving a near fatal rockfall.[7]