Pearson is perhaps best known for her association with
Network Ten throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. After working at
TVQ-0 in Brisbane, she transferred to
ATV-0 in Melbourne where she co-presented
Ten Eyewitness News with
David Johnston from 1982 to 1987 and again from 1991 to 1993. In 1988, Pearson was crowned as a
Moomba monarch during Melbourne's annual
Moomba Festival. Pearson was poached by the
Nine Network in 1988 who reportedly lured her across from Ten with a contract worth approximately one million dollars. This was reportedly in an attempt by Nine to "warehouse" Pearson just to break up the successful pairing of Pearson and Johnston. While at Nine in 1988, she co-hosted a national
news magazine program
Live at Five with
Terry Willesee before also hosting a Saturday afternoon lifestyle program
Body and Soul. This was after
Live at Five was renamed to
Eye on Australia in early 1989 with Willesee hosting the show solo. Pearson and Willesse's
Live at 5 was remembered in 2009 when Nine again attempted an afternoon news magazine program when they launched
This Afternoon. Pearson returned to Ten in 1991 where she resumed her on-air partnership on
Ten Eyewitness News with Johnston. Speaking to
TV Week about her time at Nine, Pearson said: "In hindsight you could say it was a mistake for me to go, but at the time I went with promise and expectation of a new career... I think I had a lot of bad luck. There were political and geographical differences that made it extremely difficult for me and the shows.” In 1992, Pearson was the centre of controversy when she changed her hair colour from blonde to auburn. This annoyed executives at Ten who ordered her to immediately change her hair colour back to the way it was. In 2012, commenting on
Tracey Spicer's article in
The Sydney Morning Herald detailing the
misogyny Spicer had encountered during her television career, Pearson observed that "some things never change, sadly". Pearson then went on to be a panelist on
TVTV on
ABC TV. Pearson later established Media Strategies, a media training organisation specialising in disaster management and public speaking. In 2010, Pearson was dividing her time between Melbourne and
Ealing in London and by 2012, she was living in
Hertfordshire in the UK and working as a producer, director and voiceover artist. ==Personal life==