Gavin Alder decided as a 10-year-old that he wanted to be a journalist after a poem he wrote about French nuclear testing in the South Pacific was published in the Courier Mail.

Why he was writing about nuclear testing at that age is still a mystery to him but he suspects he developed a sense of injustice early in life.

After finding university was far too much fun, he managed to talk his way into a newspaper job as a sports writer.

With no real plan in mind he went into crime reporting, then political reporting until he was approached to go into television in North Queensland.

There he covered stories from crocodile attacks to cats being stuck up trees and won Thorn Awards for his coverage of protests over the World Heritage listing of Queensland rainforests and the devastation caused by Cyclone Winfred.

After four years working in London with a sports network, Gavin returned to Queensland and news reporting until joining the popular Brisbane program Extra, initially as Acting Executive Producer.

Five years later it was time to sink his teeth back into current affairs reporting with Today Tonight, where he enjoys taking a quirky approach, even when confronting people who really don't feel like answering questions.

"What I enjoy is that we really do help people who feel they have nowhere else to go," he said.

"People who feel they have been wronged but get no satisfaction from those who have wronged them or from anyone in authority."

Gavin is married with three daughters (two teenagers) and reckons he deserves a medal just for raising girls.

He plays soccer (badly), plays guitar (even worse) and is convinced it is a good thing he became a journalist because he's not much good at anything else (although his daughters assure us he is a great dad).