Roy ‘Rocky’ Miller: Long-serving newspaper editor dead at age 77

Colleagues and friends are remembering a “true newspaper man” following the death of Roy “Rocky” Miller. READ THE TRIBUTES.

Roy “Rocky” Miller. 1945-2022.

COLLEAGUES remembered a “true newspaper man” when news broke that Roy Miller had passed away on Monday following a short illness.

Mr Miller, 77, went from the bottom to the top in a career which spanned nearly five decades.

From his beginnings as a copy boy in 1961 to advising Rupert Murdoch as the managing director of the Gold Coast Bulletin, he saw the industry transform from the reign of newspapers to the beginning of the digital era.

Former Bulletin editor in chief Bob Gordon remembered the man known as “Rocky”as a “true newspaperman”.

Roy Miller in April 2000 during his stint at the Gold Coast Bulletin.

“He was a great newspaper man and loved the newspapers, there is no doubt about that,” he said.

“Rocky did the whole thing, going from copy kid to police rounds and editor and was a dyed-in-the-wool reporter who was always a bit lost in management, that’s why he always loved coming down to the newsroom. His soul was with the reporters.

“I was only going to ring him next week. I though we would have more time together.”

Mr Miller, a Sydneysider, began his career at The Daily Mirror as a copy boy and went on to work as a journalist before rising to the post of assistant editor in the late ’70s.

Roy Miller with singer Mick Jagger in 1969.

He returned to the Mirror again in 1981 after a three-year stint at Brisbane’s Sunday Sun and became its editor in 1986.

Known for his bold ideas, he came up with one of his most famous promotions in late 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell.

Mr Miller phoned News Limited’s then-London based foreign correspondent Hedley Thomas who was already in Germany.

Rocky during his days at the Sunday Telegraph.

“The genius of Rocky Miller came to the fore – he had the idea that was a bit mad but great potential – for me to engage West German citizens surreptitiously to go undercover of darkness to a remote section of the border and use diamond-tipped saws to cut out large slabs of the Berlin Wall and organised for them to be sent back to Sydney by express airfreight,” Mr Thomas recalled on Monday.

“Rocky’s plan was to have it all cut up into small pieces and for those to be given to faithful readers of the Daily Mirror which he was editing.

“Not only did we incredibly pull off this act of what would now be seen as wanton vandalism but Rocky later wrote me a memo saying it was the biggest promotion in the Mirror’s history.”

He served as editor of the Sunday Telegraph from 1990 to 1999 before being appointed managing director of the Gold Coast Bulletin in 1999.

News Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch with Editor in Chief Bob Gordon and Managing Director Roy Miller in 2005.

Upon his retirement in June 2008, Mr Miller said he had “loved every minute” of his career.

“I would not change a thing,’’ he said.

During his time on the Gold Coast, he could frequently be found “holding court” and enjoying a caesar salad, four hot chips and a “woody” chardonnay at Main Beach’s Mano’s, which was dubbed his “second office”.

Mano’s Owner Mick Ellison became a friend of Mr Miller and remembered him fondly.

“He was a great fellow and when he lived here he was sensational for the city,” he said.

“Sydney was home for Roy but he loved the Gold Coast and loved coming here for a yarn.

“We used to tell him that we should have charged him rent for using us as a second office.”

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