Tributes for veteran Adelaide journalist, Margaret Brenton, who has died at age 94

A trailblazing female journalist who spent five decades in the industry and ‘knew everyone in Adelaide’ has died.

Journalist Marina Craig with Margaret Brenton, right.

Journalism pioneer Margaret Brenton has been remembered as the “grand dame of Adelaide newspapers” after her death at the age of 94.

Ms Brenton, who died in hospital on Thursday following a recent fall, spent more than five decades in the industry and held various roles at The News and The Sunday Mail before retiring in 2003.

Her most notable interviews included legendary actor Katharine Hepburn, novelist P.D. James and ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn.

Longtime colleague and friend Samela Harris said Ms Brenton was “universally liked” and a “role model to many”.

“I first met her on the editorial floor of The News in the 1960s,” said Ms Harris, chair of SA Women in Media.

“I can’t recall a more capable journalist with a longer career. Or a more universally liked and respected one.

“She was an all-original from those early days of women’s pages in newspapers, a precise and skilled writer and a role model to many.”

Veteran arts critic and Sunday Mail columnist Peter Goers described her as the “grand dame of Adelaide newspapers”.

Journalist Margaret Brenton.

Journalist Marina Craig with Ms Brenton (right).

“She was a loyal, very funny, lovely friend whom I admired hugely,” he said.

Ms Brenton’s niece Sue Springbett said her beloved aunty was “very loving and humble”, who would do anything for her family and friends.

“She just loved her job. She knew everyone in Adelaide and they knew her but she never bragged about it, she never grandstanded. She was a very humble person,” Ms Springbett said.

Born in 1931 in Broken Hill, Ms Brenton first joined the Sunday Mail as a copygirl in the pictorial department in 1950.

She travelled overseas for several years, before returning to Adelaide to the position of sub-editor on the women’s pages of The News, a position she held for 19 years.

In 1980, Ms Brenton moved back to the Mail as women’s editor, handing over the reins to Marina Craig in 1986.

She was known for her accuracy, with her colleagues and sub-editors at the Mail often saying in admiration that she “never made a mistake”.

Ms Brenton retired for the first time in 1994 but returned by popular demand to write and edit her Out and About column, later renamed My Society, eventually hanging up her pen in 2003.

Ms Springbett said her aunty still read the newspaper every day and preferred to write to friends on an old typewriter instead of a computer. A passionate football fan, she closely followed the fortunes of the Adelaide Crows and Glenelg in the SANFL.

“She was just a beautiful person, who was loved by so many people,” Ms Springbett said.

Ms Brenton is survived by Ms Springbett and her nephew Simon Bennett.

Originally published as Tributes for veteran Adelaide journalist, Margaret Brenton, who has died at age 94