Indigenous issues highlighted in editor’s quest for the truth

Chris Mitchell, a former boss of The Australian and a champion of indigenous affairs, is among the citizens being honoured today.

Chris Mitchell, former editor-in-chief of The Australian, has been recognised for his contribution to print media and support of indigenous education programs with an Officer of the Order of Australia. Picture: Cathy Rushton

In his book Making Headlines, Chris Mitchell talks of how it had been a close run thing that he got into journalism at all.

He was set to be a dentist, but his mother told him she could not understand “why you wanted to look into people’s mouths all day … I think you should try journalism”.

Having taken up a cadetship on the Brisbane afternoon daily The Telegraph at the age of 17, Mitchell went on to become one of the most successful and long-serving editors of this era, and used that platform to promote indigenous affairs to the top of the national agenda. Those twin roles have earned Mitchell the honour of being appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia “for distinguished service to the print media through senior editorial roles, as a journalist, and to indigenous education programs”.

After a varied career as a rep­orter and subeditor on the Townsville Bulletin, the Sydney Daily Telegraph, and the Australian ­Financial Review, Mitchell joined The Australian in 1984, becoming editor in 1992. After a stint as ­editor-in-chief of Queensland Newspapers, he returned to Sydney as editor-in-chief of The Australian in 2002, and held that position until he retired in 2015.

That long tenure on this newspaper was marked by his tireless direction of an aggressive, tenacious and sometimes controversial style of news-breaking and investigative reporting, which won many awards for the paper and its journalists. But the element in the citation on indigenous education highlights a distinct aspect of ­Mitchell’s editorship.

In the early years after he ­became editor-in-chief of The Australian, Mitchell further strengthened coverage of northern Australia and indigenous affairs with a stable of reporters so that, as he writes in Making Headlines, the paper was “able to cover the Aboriginal world in a way no other paper had ever attempted”.

“We reported factually, whether on questions of disadvantage, art fraud, substance abuse, the ­Stolen Generations apology, or the referendum on constitutional recognition,” Mitchell writes.

The coverage was not, as ­Mitchell observes, wholly focused on the negative — he established a ­relationship with the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation to publish hundreds of ­stories of young people succeeding in school and tertiary education.

His longstanding friend Noel Pearson, policy director of the Cape York Institute and one of the most prominent leaders on indigenous advancement, told The Weekend Australian: “As a newspaper editor Chris had an abiding mission to include the stories of ­indigenous people in the national political and cultural discourse. He had a conviction that the issues needed to be brought out of the shadows and put in front of every Australian reader … His zeal and support for better policy and open hearts had few peers. Great to see my old mate get this recognition.”

Asked what he was proud of in his years of newspaper editing, Mitchell referred to several big, ­investigative exposes that led to action, among them: “Tony Koch’s many pieces on Aboriginal victims of crime in North Queensland for The Courier-Mail in the late 1990s and his work on pursuing the truth about the death of Mulrunji ­Doomadgee for The Australian in the early 2000s stand out.”

As to receiving the Australia Day honour, Mitchell said: “As the son of a widowed migrant from war-torn Europe, I am very grateful for this award and thankful for her influence in my life.”