AUSTRALIAN STORY SURPRISES

In yet another excellent report in the Australian Story TV series, the ABC   dealt with Sydney Morning Herald  reporter , Malcolm Brown, the man who commented out loud in  the Darwin  courtroom  that the jury which convicted the Chamberlains was a pack of  bastards. The dialogue said that the judge had clearly tried to direct the  jury to find the Chamberlains not guilty, yet found them guilty , causing Brown’s outburst. Michael Chamberlain commented that he  trusted Brown, while there were many in the media the Chamberlains did not trust.

 The show told how Brown,  a top notch , veteran reporter , prone to outbursts and somewhat eccentric behaviour  due to a schizoid  condition , was   recently  induced to retire from the Sydney Morning Herald after  having  worked  there since 1972 . The story also covered  the tragic ,mass sacking of staff  at the SMH, part of the  once great Fairfax organisation, its shares below  50cents .

In the promo for the show there was a quick still shot, above, of a newspaper room which, despite diminished eyesight , caught my attention because it was a view from the now long gone Sydney Sun general reporters room on the fifth floor of the Fairfax building on Broadway, where I once worked . In the centre of the activity, in a dark suit ( he often dressed like Dick Tracy , the comic strip detective), was Joe Morris , a legendary police roundsman , with  whom I had many dealings, both as a copyboy and a reporter.

I managed to take a screen grab of that same scene the night the Australian Story on Brown was run. Downloading the shot from my digital camera the morning after, I ejaculated with surprise when I discovered that I was one of the reporters in the group  at a desk behind  Morris.  Calling my wife, I asked her if she could identify this bloke with a  phone attached to his ear. “That’s you !” I pointed out I  was wearing my trendy , narrow , knitted tie, part of a Reuben F. Scarfe  menswear  store  20 pounds ($40) time  payment scheme , another item  being an Ivy League (American) , button  down  collar  shirt . Really cool .

I could not recall the photo being taken , realised it was staged , and puzzled over the fact that we  were facing the wrong way in the reporters room.  Sitting to the left of the late Joe Morris-who will be discussed in detail in a major newspaper serial in Little Darwin sometime in the future- is a contemporary of mine , Warner Russell, so I emailed him in Sydney for comment. Both Morris and Russell were licenced to own a  pistol and practised together at the police shooting gallery. Furthermore,Warner’s email address reflects his interest in firearms .

Warner fired back a quick reply and said the photo , taken in the late 1950s by my reckoning , just before I went to Darwin for the first time,  had  been run in the staff news and that we had been facing towards the large windows , rather than normally with them at our backs, for better lighting . Taken from this angle , the SMH sub editors’ table and reporters desks are seen in the background.--Peter Simon .