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The News

The birthplace of News Corporation, The News was an afternoon daily tabloid newspaper in the city of Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1869 as the Evening Journal, The Advertiser, controlled by the Herald and Weekly Times, took a controling stake in 1933. In 1949, HWT sold off The News: Two years later, Sir Keith Murdoch took control of the paper and bequeathed it to his son Rupert upon his death. The News was Rupert's first media interest and laid the foundation of what was to become News Limited and later the international media conglomerate, News Corporation. When Murdoch acquired Adelaide's morning newspaper in 1987, he sold The News that year. The News printed its last edition on Friday, March 27, 1992.

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Keith HepperSardonic subeditor and unlikely PR consultant Keith Hepper, who died in Sydney last month, was farewelled in two cities on the day of his memorial service.

I met Keith in the 1980s when we both worked at The News in Adelaide, encountering a man who expressed a level of cynicism that makes Frank Underwood seem like Polyanna. Yet Keith redeemed his deadpan and often dreadful declarations with a soft curl of his lips and a twinkle in his eyes.

Keith was wickedly funny and it is one of the regrets of my life that I did not catch up with him more often for beer-drinking debriefs in Newtown, the Sydney suburb where he lived since returning from Adelaide.

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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...

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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.

roger holden speaks at the reunion with frank pangallo on the left

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.

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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.

 

More News...

  1. Marg’s memories of that March day (21 April 2012)
  2. VIDEO - The day The News moved to computers (21 April 2012)
  3. Naked ambition shows Wood Ducks in full glory (13 April 2012)
  4. Blasts from the Past - pix from The News (07 April 2012)