King of the country’s City Beat dead at 56

ONE of Australia’s best-known financial journalists and columnists, James McCullough, has died at 56.

James McCullough was the long-time writer of the influential City Beat column.

ONE of Australia’s best-known financial journalists and columnists, and a former London correspondent for The Australian, James McCullough, has died of a heart attack at 56.

McCullough was the long-time writer of the influential City Beat column in the Brisbane’s Courier-Mail, but also an assistant editor of the newspaper, and wrote widely about business matters across several sections.

His main beat was the Brisbane business scene, but he was always keen to go up-country and see for himself the various mining projects his contacts were spruiking.

He was an old-style journalist who enjoyed a long lunch, but he always kept his wits about him and observed not only what his luncheon companions were saying, but also who was at the next table and what they were saying.

He was an intelligent man who got on well with people and, more importantly from the perspective of the business community, was on the side of business, although he certainly had a sharp eye for shonks.

A native New Zealander, he started his career with the New Zealand Herald in 1977 before coming to Australia in 1980, when he worked as a business journalist for news agency AAP before joining The Australian as a business journalist in 1986.

He was posted to Hong Kong and then London by this newspaper, and when he returned to Australia in the mid 90s he was hired by the then editor of the Courier-Mail, Chris Mitchell, now editor-in-chief of The Australian, to come to Brisbane to write about the city and state’s business community.

Although he had no links to Queensland before this, as it turns out he stayed in Brisbane for the rest of his life.

“James was a larger-than-life figure in the Australian business community, revered and sometimes feared by those he wrote about, and absolutely loved by every one of his colleagues and friends,” the editor of The Courier-Mail, Christopher Dore, said yesterday.

“In his three decades as a business journo, James has covered all the big stories with style, and developed one of the best contact books in Brisbane.

“He will be fondly remembered as one of the great, truly colourful, old-school correspondents, who was still having a remarkable influence on the young generation of journalists in the newsroom.”

He is survived by adult sons Connor and Cameron as well as his wife Laura Tay and their young son Thomas.