Afterthought is a blog about technology, travel and books by John Harris, who has worked as a journalist, columnist and publicist for the past three decades.
In Afterthought, John records what interests him - travel tales and happy snaps; book reviews and, of course, his trademark technolgy rants.
As it's a blog, feel free to add your comments on any of John's posts.
The News 20-Year Reunion occurred at the Strathmore Hotel on Saturday, April 21, 2012. Nearly 100 people attended included Roger and Marion Holden, Geoff Jones, Diane Beer, Marg Ralston, Anne-Maree Gale, Mike O'Reilly, Kevin Bull and many other luminaries. Mike O'Reilly captured the night's highlights on video.
This is Video 1 of 3, with a lot of mixing and mingling and Irish Mike kicking off the formalities.
But wait\ folks, there's more to come, including Jonesy...
Twenty years after printing their last edition, nearly 100 former colleagues from The News reunited to share memories of the great achievements of Rupert Murdoch’s first newspaper.
Although it was the last major daily to replace “hot type” with computers, The News later became a trailblazer in technology by becoming the first newspaper to print full-colour pages.
But it was loud laughter and long stories of scoops, deadlines and “country trips” the filled the hours of Saturday afternoon as The News was recalled for its achievements rather than its passing.
The News owner and publisher Roger Holden acknowledged that time had eased the pain of the newspaper’s closure so people could now remember it with pride and shared affection.
The News editor Frank Pangallo praised the energy and initiative of a newspaper that would chase and break stories between multiple daily editions, including the day in 1980 when the newsroom was electrified by a report from Alice Springs that a dingo had taken a baby.
But the highlight of the reunion was when The News Chief of Staff, the legendary Geoff Jones, was presented with the Gold Wood Duck.
The News printed its last edition on Friday, March 27, 1992. Twenty years later, on Saturday, 21, 2012, the complete catastrophe of hacks, flacks, hangers-on, bas-beens, shoulda-beens and sentimentalists is converging on The Strathmore Hotel on North Terrace, Adelaide, to prove that The News may be gone, but is never forgotten - except for those superfluous braincells that we've jettisoned in bars along the way.
Gidday All Well what a surprise to hear about this reunion - would’ve been great to see you all of you ratbags and share beverage or three! So many great memories of my time there, that started down on North Terrace as a “copy boy” (along with Mark McGowan) in 1987, fresh out of high school. We were the last copy boy-to-cadet mob. After this folks would need a degree. I loved being a copy person and getting to know all the unique versions of “copy!” that would be called out across the floor. I’ve never forgotten having to fill out dozens of those damn index cards for Big Dave at the greyhound desk, or being taken up the Strath for my first drink (a Midori and lemonade, don’t ask why I still remember) by some of the old guard on my 18th birthday. I never did quite master the whole short-hand thing, even with the best attempts and patience of our teacher, Carol Molnar. After The Newsclosed, I traveled and worked across Canada for nearly two years (quite a bit of time with former News copy girl, Joanne Scott)and then spent some time in the US before returning to work at The Advertiser. Following that, I had a terrific time working with John Field and the imitable Shazza Miller at Field Business Services in the Adelaide and Sydney offices. I still use much of what I learned about writing and PR gained from my time at The News, The Advertiserand FBS to this day. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to make it to your shin-dig since I now live in Colorado in the good ol’ USA and have done so for the past 12 years. In 1999 I won a Green Card in the lottery which is held every year – yep, literally, I was pulled out of the hat! As a once-in-a-lifetime thing I had to go for it and brought a one-way ticket over here. For the past 12 years I have been working as a senior director overseeing a variety of divisions from Lodging to Guest Services to Retail in two, world-class ski resorts, Copper Mountain and Winter Park (both an hour or so west of Denver) where we host nearly 1 million visitors a year. Yes, quite the departure from journalism but not far removed from my family background in restaurants and hotels. So, here I am living high in the Rocky Mountains with my husband of two years, Joe, (I am a late bloomer, took me 39 years to find the right bloke) and two dogs. I ski a ton every winter and in the summer it’s all about hiking and rafting up here. Currently I am the General Manager of Lodging at Winter Park Resort where I oversee the management of 600+ condos and a team of 150 employees in a $6 million division. I am in the middle of getting my MBA at UniSA (figured it was about time I finally got myself some “skooling”!), so still feel very connected to Adelaide via its International Graduate School Of Business. Wishing everyone a very happy reunion. Be sure to give me a shout if you’re ever in the neighborhood and want to head out onto the hill for some turns!
Cheers, Melissa Moore
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Robyn Kerrison (1990-92)
Some of you probably already know that my original plan upon leaving The News (quick season in the snowfields followed by a glorious career working on UK newspapers/magazines) fell down even before I had made it out of Adelaide. In the end I spent a brief spell in Jindabyne working at the truly awful local paper before running away to Melbourne. I was happy to be able to resume my tradition of long lunches with Mark Mc while subbing at TV Week for about 18 months. By then the travel funds were in decent shape again and I left for two years of kayaking expeditions in India, Syria, Sudan and Europe. No UK. No working. No income.Back to Australia, then, utterly broke. This time to Sydney. It took a frighteningly long time to find a gig (even Take 5magazine interviewed me and turned me down, FFS!!), but finally I found some work subbing for a too-hip-for-words publishing house that produced "asprirational" titles. Tossers. The day I agreed to a permanent, full-time job there, the realization of what I’d done actually made me cry! I quit the next day.Before the week was out, I'd had a call from the Bulletin offering a couple of weeks' casual subbing, which lasted five blissful years. I hung in there, through the big population exchange between ACP and Fairfax and then, in 2000, with another wholly inadequate pot of dosh to fund it, I went off to Lebanon for a year to finish up the degree in Arabic I'd been doing on the side (in the hope that one day I'd launch a dazzling career as a foreign correspondent, of course). I was working at The Daily Star then. It was a big year: Aerial bombardments, occupation forces leaving, neighbouring dictator dying and bequeathing the presidency to his supposedly kinder, gentler opthamologist son… But I watched while a gazillion (literally - a gazillion) foreign correspondents parachuted in with no knowledge of the countries or the issues, elbowing each other aside to reach the same handful of "experts", because there wasn't time to do real research... And another dazzling career plan faded.Toward the end of my time in Lebanon I did a bit of work for the UN, and started thinking of a different career. Back to Australia, broke again. Back to uni for another bit of parchment. And then to Australian Red Cross, helping asylum seekers banged up in Woomera and Baxter Detention Centres try to locate scattered family members in Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran.Next Fiji and then Papua New Guinea with the international Red Cross. Then a holiday in Morocco and a possibly rash house purchase. A year in Khartoum, then briefly back to Australia. Sudan again next, this time with the UN in Darfur, twice (slow learner). Next mission was Afghanistan with yet another bit of the UN, this time working on human rights protection for refugees and internally displaced persons. And now I’m in Haiti, working on human rights protection again. So, there you go. The career's turned out to be more grubby and gritty than glittering, but I like it. I've often wondered where you all are and what you're up to and I'd absolutely love to hear from any/all of you, so please feel free to drop me a line at
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. Enormous hugs to all and I really wish I could be there for the reunion. (PS, big thanks to Jane for the heads-up!)
Grant Rowlands (1968-71 and 1978-92)
Grant started at The News in 1968 as a copy boy, became a cadet finance reporter working at the stock exchange in 1969 and a D grade journalist for The Advertiser in finance in 1971. He did a two-year stint for SMH as senior finance writer in 1974 and rejoined the Murdoch camp as deputy finance editor of the Sydney Daily Mirror in 1976. Grant returned to The News as deputy Finance Editor in 1978. From 1980 to 1989 he was Finance Editor of The News and was the driving force behind the development of the first major monthly business insert into afternoon newspapers – Money News -- and the launch of the first investment expo in SA in 1984—Money News Investment Expo. In 1989 he was appointed General Manager. After the closure of The News, Grant became chief executive of the Australian Institute of Management (1992-96), Chief of Staff to the Minister of the Environment and Natural Resources, Minister for Family and Community Services and Minister for the Ageing (1996-1997), Strategic Communications Manager the Adelaide City Council (1998-2005), Strategic Communications Consultant, Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council UK (2005), and Strategic Communications Manager Department of Education and Children’s Services (2006-2008).In 2008 Grant and Helen decided to put corporate city life behind them and opened a 134 seat restaurant and art gallery --- Palate 2 Palette -- in the tourist seaside town of Port Broughton (www:palate2palette.com.au). The fishing is great up here and there is a lovely B&B right next door to our place so you don’t have to drive after you enjoy a sumptuous meal and great wine at Palate 2 PaletteI planned to get to the reunion, but owning a restaurant has its own demands particularly on weekends. I still look back at my time at The News and think how lucky I was to choose such a great career which enabled you to work with and meet the most interesting people of an era. The News was a great newspaper and pacesetter in many ways, particularly in SA --- computerisation, pagination, colourisation. Now every day when I open The Advertiser I am reminded of this fact because we at The News laid the groundwork for that newspaper. I still believe that we in our final days were producing a top notch world class daily afternoon newspaper and we all should be proud to say I worked at The News.
Jane Schulze (1991-92)
I was in the last group of graduate cadets taken on by The News in 1991, and received a wild introduction to the world of media when I was unemployed a year later! The love of print journalism that I first tasted at The News stayed with me throughout my career, working at the Herald Sun, PA News in London, The Age and then The Australian. I became a business journalist and specialised in Media company reporting. And for most of that time News Corporation was the largest media company on the ASX. So it was always quite surreal when I’d get press releases from News Corp in New York with the words ``Incorporated in South Australia’’ written prominently at the top of the page beneath the company name…a hangover from Rupert’s ownership of The News. It would always remind me of my time on the paper. Three years ago I started a business called Standard Media Index. I’ve been in Sydney for the past ten years and am always keen to hear from any former News colleagues. Email Jane
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Tony Tassell (1985-91)
Tony, the youngest-ever Business Editor atThe News, has gone on to a distinguished career in financial journalism in the UK. For the last four years, Tony has had a front-row seat on the global financial crisis and the Eurozone debacle, working at the heart of the Financial Times as Financial News Editor. Tony's previous jobs have included Mumbai correspondent, Philippines correspondent, Lex columnist, Investment correspondent covering shareholder issues, Deputy Markets Editor and Deputy UK Companies editor. Although Tony doesn't write a lot now, he occasionally contributes commentary on banks or finance for ft.com or joins the markets live chat on the newspaper's blog FT Alphaville.. Tony tweets a lot under @tonytassell or you can email him at
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.
Tony can't make it to The News 20-Year Reunion, but you can check below for Tony's blog post which provided this updated summary on what he's up to.
Randall Ashbourne
Former political editor at The News,RandallAshbourne, whose subsequent political career in SA was an early fatality of the Rann Government, now advises investors on how to apply astrology to stock market trading. Randall now describes himself as former journalist and political strategist turned stock trader. In his recently published ebook, TheIdiotandtheMoon, Randall asks if the position of the planet Jupiter can consistently predict the timing of Bull market tops and Bear bottoms? Although Randall acknowledges that the kneejerk response of many readers will be to dismiss that assertion as superstitious nonsense, he goes on to claim: “It is simply a clearly demonstrable fact that trading The Moods of The Moon - the monthly phases of the lunar cycle - produces steady and reliable profits across any long-term timeframe.” Check out Randall’s stellar stock market strategy for yourself at www.theidiotandthemoon.com or email
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.
News flash: Randall plans to attend The News 20-Year Reunion
Michelle Wiese Bockmann (Michelle Munn)
Michelle is now based in London working as a journalist forBloomberg News, covering commodities shipping and global trade. She has been married to Neil Wiese for 15 years and they have 13-year-old twins, Amalia and Alexander. Neil is working as managing editor for IHS Fairplay, a global maritime publishing company. They moved to the UK nearly six years ago after living and working in Panama, and Miami, Florida, as well as Adelaide (Neil with the ABC and Michelle with The Australian). Michelle's email is
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Leon Mead (1986-92)
If you like the rotating photos at the top left of this website, that's because they were taken by the brilliant Leon Mead. Leon lives a hermitically sealed life with his beloved Bea and their boys, Luke and James, in Broome, on the North West coast of Australia. When not occasionally venturing south for less sweltering summers at Goolwa, Leon runs a successful photographic business out of Broome with clients including The Australian, Melbourne's Herald Sun and the Courier-Mailin Brisbane. Leon has a great excuse for not being at The News Reunion: "We'll be in the Buccaneer archipelago, Kimberley, in our 6.7 metre fish boat with Bob LeDan, dodging crocodiles and catching Barra - or we would be there!" he explains. Yet there's hope for those of us who miss Loop with a rumour that the whole Mead clan may migrate south for good in the next year or two for the kids to do their post-high school study in Adelaide.
Check out Leon's website at http://www.leonmeadphotography.com/ or email him at
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If you can't make it to The News Reunion, but want to let your former colleagues know what's up with you, this is the place to do it. Either post a comment below or send a note and photo to John Harris at
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Australia’s first woman sports editor Marg Ralston remembers writing the final back page of The News with vivid clarity.
“It doesn't seem like 20 years since I wrote the final chapter on the back page of The News (RIP),” recalls Marg, whose active career since includes stints in politics and public relations as well as collecting an AM for her outstanding services to sports.
“It was a sad and traumatic day. Good friends were lamenting the fate that had befallen them and trying to contemplate what the future held for them and their families. Security personnel were trying to be sympathetic while at the same time moving staff towards the door.
In the late 1980s, The News in Adelaide - Rupert Murdoch's first newspaper - became the last major newspaper in Australia to move from ancient clackety typewriters to computers. Was it the dawn of a brave new world or the beginning of the end?
The video below is the first quarter of a one-hour report about that change and the people it affected.
The next three videos follow below - just press Read More.
After two decades of neglect, the wicked Wood Ducks return in their full glory for a final swansong at The News 20-Year Reunion on April 21, 2012.
Dubbed the Eternal Wood Ducks, these awe-inspiring awards will acknowledge the auspicious achievements of three alumni of that academy of amazing altruism and alcoholic annihilation - The News.
Just three Wood Ducks will be presented at The News 20-Year Reunion – one to the most shocking sheila, one to the most probing bloke while the glittering Golden Wood Duck will recognise the Best Nose for News - from the days before the error (sic) of phone hacking!
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Afterthought is a blog about technology, travel and books by John Harris, who has worked as a journalist, columnist and publicist for the past three decades.
After two decades of neglect, the wicked Wood Ducks return in their full glory for a final swansong at The News 20-Year Reunion on April 21, 2012.
