‘The heady days’: Original staff recall launch of The Australian
As this masthead prepares to celebrate its 60th anniversary, early staff members recall the excitement of a young national daily newspaper.
In 1964, publisher Rupert Murdoch mustered all hands on deck as he steered a course for the first edition of the first truly national daily newspaper, The Australian.
That early crew was a group of mostly young men and women, who barely knew each other and had arrived in Canberra from around the country for this challenging venture.
The flyer for this cruise stated once everyone was aboard, it would set course for an uncertain destination, the weather would be a challenge, and there were no lifeboats. Only the captain, Murdoch, was utterly confident.
On July 14, 1964, they worked together to bring about the first edition of The Australian for the next morning.
Tony Prowse had seen an advertisement seeking “a boy” for the venture. “I am qualified,” he told his mum and promptly left school and cycled up the Mort Street gang plank.
“It was very exciting. We were going to build a newspaper in Canberra,” he remembers.
Not just that: plates from the presses were going to be flown to Sydney – as long as Canberra’s airport wasn’t fogbound – while others for Melbourne were sent to meet a train at Yass. If the driver missed that connection, it was on to Junee, another 157km away.
Yvette Grady had been studying photography and “was thrown in the deep end”. She said the head of the department wanted “someone who knows nothing about photography” so they hadn’t picked up any bad habits.
“I learnt to print photographs and make up chemicals,” said Grady, who became Australia’s first newspaper-trained photographer. She was small and slight and someone wondered aloud if she would be able to carry all the gear.
“Give her a go,” instructed Murdoch.
Another given a go was Sandra Hall. At 22, she was what we then called a D grade reporter, the first rung after completing a four-year cadetship. She was excited by the challenge – not everyone gets to work on a new newspaper. She speaks of them as “heady days”.
“There was a lot of excitement … no one knew how it would end.”
George Calvi was recruited from the School of Graphic Arts where he was to become a hand and machine compositor: The Australian was made up in hot metal, lead slugs cast out as type, a technology that had barely evolved since its invention by Johannes Gutenberg, who had been born in 1393.
And Calvi would be in charge of production when computer typesetting swept all that away.
He describes his time on The Australian as “a love affair that lasted 42 years”.
The Australian’s editor-in-chief, Michelle Gunn, who spoke to the early staff members at the masthead’s office in Sydney, said: “It has been an absolute joy hearing the stories of the early days of the paper … It was such an audacious endeavour to establish a national paper in Canberra in those days when communications were so rudimentary and distribution challenges so monumental.
“The success of the masthead was a testament to Rupert Murdoch’s vision and determination.
“There is no doubt about that. It was also the product of the energetic and talented people he recruited to work alongside him in those early years.
“Publishing the paper was definitely a daily miracle for a while there.
“The funny thing is that six decades later, in the age of digital platforms and 24-7 news output, it can still sometimes feel that way.
“Working on The Australian is intense. Our readers deserve the sharpest news coverage, the most incisive analysis and highest quality storytelling we can possibly deliver. Our staff feel that responsibility very keenly. They are passionate about their work, and about the role the masthead plays in shaping the national conversation.
“And I guess my conversations with George, Warren, Sandra, John and Yvette just reinforced to me that there is a golden thread of belief and purpose which runs through our history and will continue to chart our course as we embark upon the next 60 years.”