June Carlsson was a journalist and the first female TV news anchor in Sweden.

June Carlsson was born in 1945 in Kungsholmen, Stockholm. She was the eldest daughter of Barbro and Wilhelm Carlsson, who were both shop workers. June Carlsson had three children. She married the journalist Staffan Ekendahl in 1981.

After graduating from Brännkyrka högre läroverk June Carlsson continued her studies at Journalistinstitutet. Having graduated from the latter she began her career as a journalist in 1966 by working at Sveriges Radio. A few years later she was head-hunted for a TV news show called Aktuellt. Thus, when she was 24 years old, she became Sweden’s first ever female news anchor. During the 1970s and 1980s she held many significant posts as TV host and supervisor within the news and social sections of Sveriges Television (SVT), thus serving as a pathbreaker for women in radio and TV.

June Carlsson took an active role in the equality debates of the 1970s and coined the phrase that TV news programmes were made “by men, with men, for men”.

In the early 1980s June Carlsson became the host of Studio S, an influential TV show dealing with current social affairs. She was also involved in developing and presenting the programme 20:00, a live news magazine. In addition to news and current affairs shows she also worked on the interview series Ärligt talat, the special report show Kriminellt, and the cultural programme Möte Waldemarsudde.

June Carlsson left SVT in 1987 and set up her own production company called June Carlsson Mediaproduktion AB. Amongst other things she produced Människans barn, a video series comprising 15 episodes describing children’s development from infancy through to pre-school years. The series was used as teaching material within maternity care and pre-schools by many local authorities.

For many years June Carlsson worked as a consultant in communications, conferencing, and leadership development. She ran seminars and trained young journalists. For some time she was a partner in the consultant company Oxford Leadership Academy, which had global company and government heads as its clients.

June Carlsson died in 2015 as a result of breast cancer. She is buried at Täby kyrkbys södra cemetery, which is also called Stillheten (tranquillity).