WHEN Ita Clare Buttrose AO, OBE speaks, Australia listens. As the country’s most-famous female journalist, her opinion is as relevant now as it was in the 1970s when she was breaking ground in the world of women’s magazines.

Founding editor of “Cleo” and the youngest editor of the “Australian Women’s Weekly”, the perfectly-primped media queen, businesswoman and regular motivational speaker looks at home in the tea lounge at Canberra’s Hyatt Hotel, sipping English breakfast tea. It’s a place she visits often as her son and his family live in the nation’s capital.

“I’ve been coming here since about 1959. I used to come here when it was the Canberra Hotel, so there’s a lot of nostalgia for me,” she says.

It’s clear she is enjoying the renewed interest in her career, probably sparked by the top-rating ABC mini-series “Paper Giants: the Birth of Cleo”. She’s a regular face on television, talking about everything from media to modern-day etiquette to the royal family.

“If you’ve got an opportunity to express a view, you should take it,” she says.

She is well aware of how powerful her voice is and she happily lends it to causes she feels strongly about.

As the national president of Alzheimer’s Australia, patron of the Macular Degeneration Foundation and vice-president emeritus of Arthritis Australia, she uses her profile to help raise awareness.

“I don’t mind being used for a great cause,” she says.

“It doesn’t matter what you ask me to speak about, I will get macular degeneration, Alzheimer’s and often arthritis into the talk.

“I don’t take on any of these roles for any other reason except that I can make a difference and I hope that I can alert more people to things they can do and how I can help persuade governments and private enterprise of the need for funding.”

She’ll be back in Canberra next month to speak at the National Press Club in her efforts to “open a few doors and kick down a few barriers” for Alzheimer’s Australia.

When Ita’s father was in his 80s, he was diagnosed with vascular dementia, the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer’s, and she became his principal carer.

On top of the dementia, he suffered from macular degeneration and his hearing wasn’t great. Ita describes it as “a terrible trifecta of health”.

“Because my father had [macular degeneration], I have a 50 per cent risk of getting it, so I get my macular checked every year and so far so good,” she says.

But it’s dementia that she seems most determined to fight.

“If you told me I had arthritis, I’d say ‘oh damn’. But if you said to me, ‘you know, you’ve got Alzheimer’s, I’d be so scared. It would be the most horrible thing,” she says.

THE mother of two is set to release an updated version of her autobiography, “A Passionate Life”, on July 2 – 14 years after it was first released.

Revising it was a task she found surprisingly difficult and, after deciding “I don’t think I like that anymore” about the end of the book, she completely rewrote the last seven chapters.

ONE of her favourite topics is the media.

“Magazines don’t seem to be in quite as much strife as newspapers,” says the former editor of Rupert Murdoch’s Sydney “Daily Telegraph” and its Sunday sister.

“There seems to be a dedicated following and I think that’s because women in particular regard their favourite magazine as a friend. They look forward to it and want to see what it’s saying.”

But she warns that to remain successful, they will need to move towards apps for tablets.

“I think apps are the way to go. Your two most expensive costs in publishing are your printer and if you have to post. If you remove those two charges, your bottom line just takes on a whole new look.”

Her criticisms of magazines and the media in general are pointed.

“A lot of whiz kids think they know it all,” she says.

“There are a lot of companies that are not run by people that have a lot of experience in the media. The media is not a place for amateurs.

“A lot of people with experience are no longer in the business. They got rid of them.”

She mentions the royal family: “I always judged what I put on the cover by the strength of the story… with the exception sometimes of the royal family. Sometimes you’d just be sent a great shot of one of the royals and you’d just use it.”

Ita returns to Canberra on Wednesday, July 11, to speak at the National Press Club. Bookings to npc.org.au and press through to “speakers”.