‘Be right, assume nothing, speak to people’: John Silvester reflects on 40 years of crime reporting

The Naked City podcast, with John Silvester, returned this month with season four. Here, “Sly”, a journalist of more than 40 years’ experience, remembers his first days on the job and how the life of a crime reporter has evolved.

On my first day in journalism, I made the editor laugh when I asked, “Where is my office?”

I have had 28 editors since and have made many of them laugh, usually when asking for a pay rise. One threatened to punch me, one (a middle-aged male) kissed me on the lips when I presented him with a scoop, one couldn’t spell my name, one looked perplexed when I gave him cash as an attempted bribe to get on page one, and another was bemused that during a one-on-one performance review I gave him seven out of ten – he lost points for not running enough crime stories. Apparently, he wanted to rate me, not the other way around.

John Silvester recording an episode of his Naked City podcast.Credit: Simon Schluter

Back on that first day I took a quick look around and saw there was only one office. The editor’s. He looked me up and down. I was wearing skin-tight flares, a fetching body-shirt and a sports jacket made largely of polyester. Protruding from the front pocket of the pants was a gold pen, a 21st birthday present.

“Leave the pen at home, son. It will get stolen here,” was his first piece of advice. I thought, “You cynical old coot.” Three days later it was stolen.

My first two lessons in journalism were thus: 1) Listen to your editor and 2) Don’t trust everyone in the newsroom.

I was a graduate cadet on one-year probation. I began slowly, failed to get any traction, and feared I would be a victim of the December cull. Some of the older reporters had fallen out of love with the trade and their negativity tended to drain the energy from you.

Then I was sent for a stint at Police Rounds (a shared office in the Russell Street police building). There was no toilet, no air-conditioning and it stunk of cold pizza and warm beer. I loved it.

The ABC guy would get drunk and sleep for the last two hours of his shift. On cold afternoons he occasionally brought in his baby goats from his hobby farm. One of The Age guys drove a sports car and occasionally carried a small pistol.

I worked with a small team of guys, all under 30 and all committed to the paper and each other. They thought I was a self-important smart-arse who needed to be taken down a peg. I disagreed. Eventually I was accepted into the team, and we became life-long friends. We bashed out stories on battered typewriters and filed over the phone to copytakers who could type a million words a second.

If we drank too much and needed to drive to my house (shared with another “Hound from the Round”), there was a sneaky detour down disused railway tracks that avoided breathalysers. No one understood why the shock absorbers on the rounds’ car needed replacing so often (or the backseat cleaned of sand after impromptu 2am police rounds’ beach parties).

One reporter was suspended after he and a group of detectives in the “rounds truck” attempted to run the newspaper chairman’s chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce off the road. An office whip around meant he made more money in his enforced week off than he lost in wages.

(Times have obviously changed.)

In one office the indoor cricket became so competitive most of the windows were broken. Eventually we replaced them out of our own pocket. Two weeks later the 1986 Russell Street Bombing blew them out again.

I started in 1978 and I keep hearing how everything in journalism has changed. I’ll give you the tip. Nothing has changed (except the lost skill of railway track driving).

Now we are told to use different platforms – print, online and podcasts. (Here is the self-promotion bit. We’ve just launched the fourth series of the Naked City podcast. Is it any good you ask? Put it this way, the tuxedo has been dry-cleaned for the anticipated Walkley call-up.)

The Naked City podcast gives me a chance to catch up with the people who make the news. It is a reminder that while issues are worthy, it is the people who are interesting.

In our offices we see journalists starting their journey and others at the top of their game. Adele Ferguson (at subscriber nights they treat her as a rock star), Nick McKenzie, Richard Baker, Kate McClymont and Peter Hartcher are all giant figures in journalism.

All reporters need the same skill set. Be right, assume nothing, use your eyes, and speak to people. File quickly, be concise and don’t be too self-important. And if you have a valuable pen, leave it at home.

The wheel has now turned a full circle. COVID means many of us have been working away from the main office and filing remotely. Online journalism has brought back the adrenaline-pumping deadlines to file several times a day. And the restructure of the Herald newsroom means younger journalists are given the chance to get hold of a yarn and run with it. Just like I was.