THE DARWIN STAR MEDIA WARS,Part 5

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Former Darwin Star editor,Neil Dibbs, sans beard,(right) is seen on a successful Pine Creek bottle digging expedition, with a scruffy, bearded individual who would have been quickly shown the door if he applied for a job as the janitor or frog tickler/ exterminator at the paper .
*********************************************************
Additional intriguing information and documents have surfaced following previous posts in this ongoing series about Darwin’s newspaper wars which saw two media moguls slug it out .

First, it has been suggested that Darwin’s independent newspaper, The Star, locked in a battle for survival against the Northern Territory News in the early 1980s , may have survived had it held on for just one more month . Information has been received from a reliable source indicating that the Murdoch camp was increasingly concerned about the cost of the campaign to wipe out the newspaper which had been bought by South Australian transport and media millionaire , Allan Scott.

A sum of up to $180,000 , we are told, was set aside to achieve that goal , which involved setting up a free,home delivered weekly, The Darwin Sun, and slashing News advertising rates by half on six month contracts. The low rates not only hit The Star, they reduced the News revenue . The Star reverted to a biweekly , having become a triweekly ,with the announced intention to become a daily, a direct challenge to the NT News .

As a result of the war , we are further advised, it got to a stage where the News felt the cost was becoming too much. It was not known how deep were the pockets of Scott and his determination to keep the paper going. A moratorium or a truce were considered at the News in which both camps co-existed . The Star, however, was eventually sucked into an economic black hole, along with the Red Dwarf.

The second piece of information which surfaced relates to Scott and his dislike of people who wore beards. When the airconditioning broke down at The Star, a bearded technician , who knew Kerry and Sandra Byrnes, founders of the paper, was called in . He had the airconditioning plant in pieces when Scott drove up and asked him what he was doing. When he explained, Scott said it would be better for him to carry out the work in the Ascott truck depot .

Having said that, he arranged for a truck and a forklift to come and pick up the pieces and take them to the depot. While the refrigeration mechanic was working on the plant at the new location, a truck drove up and a clean shaven driver alighted , walked over. ‘What are you doing ?” he asked the bearded one .

When he explained that he was fixing up the air conditioning equipment, the inquirer further asked,"For Scott?" When he replied in the affirmative, the man responded by saying that it was an interesting situation.”Why?” the puzzled electrician asked, and was told that Scott did not employ men with beards.

The very next day, the electrician, now a Tennant Creek resident, was told his services were no longer required, firmly convinced he got the chop because of his facial fungus . Other sources have confirmed that Scott did not employ bearded drivers.

It is part of Sydney newspaper folklore that media tycoon Sir Frank Packer sacked a telegram delivery boy , paying him off on the spot , for riding up and down in the Daily Telegraph lift, believing he was one of the staff .

A similar event is said to have taken place here in Darwin when Scott noticed a man walking around outside his Berrimah truck depot building . A Telecom / Telstra employee , he was supposedly just walking around trying to work out where to carry out some work. Scott bounced out of the office and demanded to know what he was doing walking about and how long he had been working there. When the fellow said he had only been there one day , Scott sacked him on the spot and told him to see the accountant and get paid off. It is probably apocryphal, but it is claimed the man also got a week’s severance pay.

Scott kept an eagle eye on the cash flow in all of his ventures . The Australian Journalists’ Association advised that Scott was known to say sack a photographer or reporter when the balance sheet headed south. He also issued firm instructions to the Boarder Watch staff regarding his support for politicians and lines to take in editorial content. These instructions and staff resignations became the subject of public knowledge .

When one of Scott’s trucks turned over in Mt Gambier, his hometown, and blocked a main road, the editor of the paper was instructed not to mention the accident in the paper. A patron of Port Power, Scott said the coach , Mark Williams, should be sacked when the side had a bad run , but it came good and won the premiership. Williams gave Scott a gentle rhubarb at the victory celebrations.

NEXT EDITION : Almost in the category of a Dead Sea Scroll, the yellowing typescript of a 30 year old article by that anonymous, annoying political Star writer , Pandanus, about a judge who reduced his Darwin audience to tears- with laughter.

MUCH ADO ABOUT EARTHQUAKES

Views of the massive Messina earthquake

Earthquakes have been on our mind of late due to a Christmas card from friends in New Zealand, the Darwin tremor and another essay by the late Professor Walter Murdoch (See our post ASSANGE AND THE MURDOCHS) dealing with a quake that destroyed an Italian city . The Kiwis live in Christchurch, once regarded as an earthquake free zone, and have had more than 3500 shakes since the city was struck by a seismic blow four months ago , smashing a large part of the CBD . Their house had sustained $10,000 damage . Then on Boxing Day we heard another quake had hit Christchurch, so sent them an email to which they promptly replied-

Hi there you two: Great to hear from you and for your concern. Just when we thought everything had settled down off it all went again .The first one at 2.30am followed quickly by another two, the first being so scary, many more from then on and a 4.9 at 10.30am really put the wind up us. All told in the last 24hrs we have had 29 after shocks. It's been quiet for 2hrs now which puts you on tenterhooks waiting for the next one.Even the small ones seem big as they are right in the city area and shallow. Parts of the city are now cordoned off as big glass windows succumbed. This time people were caught in lifts ,fire brigade very busy with alarms going off everywhere. Yes we are O.K. One thing fell and smashed plus a bookcase beside Graham missed him luckily. Mind you we have most things packed away. Two doors upstairs can't be closed. Same happened after first aftershocks but went back to normal a few weeks ago, quakes must have moved in a different direction but now they are stuck again. Have heard of several homes with quite extensive damage this time round.

Hope you have had a lovely Christmas and happy New Year to you too.

In Darwin we felt the recent mild tremors from the quake in the Banda Sea ,some 600 kms north of here.Reading Professor Murdoch’s book of essays, Steadfast, we were interested in his comments about the Messina,Italy, earthquake of December 28 1908, which claimed 75,000 lives outright ,delayed deaths through injuries raising this figure to as high as 100,000. He was in Naples at the time of the quake, and said the newspapers clearly stated that Messina and Reggio had been completely destroyed.

Twenty years later he visited Messina , the setting for Shakespeare’s comedy, Much Ado About Nothing, which he described as a city dominated by a cemetery in which many gravestones carried the words , morto nel terremoto, died in the earthquake . Parts of the city, he wrote , were a mixture of the new, very little of the past, with streets of corrugated cottages which reminded him of West Australian goldfield towns.

It just so happens that Little Darwin probably has one of the largest collection of Messina earthquake postcards in Australia, being long interested in seismology and volcanology. Some were posted the year after the earthquake.

SCROOGE IN NT FIRE SERVICE

Northern Territory firefighters turn on a well received Darwin Christmas Party for pensioners each year which is attended by hundreds and recently got a big write up with a picture in the NT News . This Christmas, however, the firefighters themselves missed out on a visit from Santa because management went against the Christmas tradition of providing the three stations with a ham each . Word is that the decision was based on " financial considerations". If the fire and rescue service cannot manage the cost of three hams , then it must be running on the smell of an oil rag or a burning tyre. Journalists might like to ask soon to depart for South Australia NT Fire Chief , Greg Nettleton, who and what was behind this Scrooge act. His new post will be that of Chief of the Country Fire Service. There are lots of Lutherans in country SA who take the observation of Xmas very seriously , and anyone tampering with that holy event would soon find himself the subject of angry sermons from pulpits throughout the hog belt.

STUFFED BOWELS FOR CHRISTMAS !!!

From Little Darwin's kitbag of oddities comes this menu for a 1940 Christmas Party held in the salubrious cafe-restaurant , ZUCKER , Tel Aviv, Palestine. The grouse tucker included stuffed bowels, snags, brains, chopped herring, "goos"-presumably with a beak , boiled meat, black gruel .We are not sure if Pearl Barley jumped out of a cake to entertain the troops or if it was a vegetable dish . A tempting dessert was eggs with smoked meat . Mussrooms sounded unusual as did Lunge in Sos (Lung). It is interesting to note the military censor passed the menu as safe to be sent home to Australia without worrying about the Desert Fox ,Field Marshall Rommel , learning what choice viands kept our brave fighting men marching on , no matter what .

THE CYCLONIC NEWSPAPER

*********************************************************

In movies and novels about newspapers , it is common to hear the cry , STOP THE PRESS ! - indicating a major breaking story which requires a change to the front page. In our exclusive series - REWIND THE PRESS ! - we recall the Northern Territory’s colourful media past, in this case the unusual publication which played a most important part at a devastating period in Darwin's history.

V

VVVictorian Pete Steedman , a seasoned and scarred ALP warrior, has been in the eye of countless political storms. It was an epic tempest, Australia’s worst natural disaster, Cyclone Tracy, which saw him called in to utilise his skills as a forceful journalist/editor, publisher and communicator in the production of the Darwin Newsletter .

The publication kept tens of thousands of evacuees down south informed about what was happening in the battered Territory capital and where they could go for help and services to try and sort out their lives which had been turned upside down. It became “ the Bible” for Darwin Resident Action Committees across the nation ,with a circulation of 20,000.

Edition number 1 was printed in Melbourne at the Salvation Army’s Citadel Press with money Steedman raised through various sources. It was illustrated with photographs supplied by The Age and included a statement in the Greek language. As the enormity of the problem became more apparent , Steedman was employed as a welfare officer by the Victorian Council for Social Service which had been studying and planning the organisational structures needed to cope with any disaster. Another journalist , John Ball, also a political activist, worked in tandem with Steedman on the Newsletter.

A Darwin Assistance Centre was set up on the fifth floor of the Australian Government Building in the Mebourne CBD , which an Age report said at times was like a noisy newspaper , with redtape between departments cut to a minimum as a thousand deadlines had to be met.

Subsequent editions of the Newsletter , printed at Stockland Press, where Steedman had previously been the publishing manager, were jam-packed with helpful information and articles which reflected his dynamic approach and the distinctive writing style of the two media men . The paper took a stand against bureaucratic inaction, unreasonable treatment of people, both down south and in Darwin.

For example, in an article dealing with the delays in handing out the millions donated to help the victims of Cyclone Tracy, administered by the Darwin Relief Trust Fund , held by four different voluntary organisations , it called for “ a quick decision by someone up top “ to allocate the “paltry” $200 per person. It was harder to find anyone who had received any of the money than to find a house that had not been blown away, chided the Newsletter .

It also was not reluctant to raise the issue of profiteering by some Darwin businesses, escalating house prices , problems with insurance companies. Ball was sent to Darwin to gather first hand information on the spot for the newspaper and was joined by Steedman . Ball had lived in Hong Kong and there were articles, illustrated with a picture of ships swept ashore in tidal surges , about how the British colony coped with regular hurricanes and information about its building code, The byline on one article billed John Ball as "our cyclone-proof obsessed reporter".

(In Hugh Lunn's book Spies Like Us , the Brisbane journalist described his first meeting with John Ball ,a long thin scar on his left cheek,in the Firecracker Bar in Hong Kong."Not another bloody Aussie," Ball remarked on hearing Lunn was a new journalist in the British colony, awash in Australian newsmen . Australia's famous journalist, Steve Dunleavy ,was working as a bouncer in the bar and also produced a publication called American Tourist) .

In Darwin Steedman and Ball worked closely with the executive director of the NT Council of Social Services ,Max Dumais, civic and government leaders.

A March 1975 edition told how few people in Darwin had known anything about video tapes until Cyclone Tracy. Now videos were flowing to and from Darwin keeping people in touch . Film Australia taught a Darwin team which included a housewife, a teacher and an air traffic controller how to take over the video service . In the first month of operation 260 taped messages were sent south.

Steedman addressed a national conference in Adelaide in April 1975 at which two representatives from all states and territories gathered to discuss the role of Darwin resident groups outside of Darwin and drew up an extensive agenda for future activities in Darwin. One of those was for a community newspaper in Darwin supported by the Darwin Reconstruction Commission. The role and requirements of such a paper were explained in great detail .

The idiosyncratic writing style of the two journalists was evident when Little Darwin recently perused Steedman’s own copies of the Newsletter, mementos of those hectic days. As an example, the May 1975 edition of the paper said Ball had lobbed in Darwin to collect stories , including some from the teams of scribes still resident in the battered city. It included a lively account of life aboard the former Greek Chandris Line cruise ship, Patris, costing the Australian government $15,100 a day, where up to 800 people paid $35 a week for full board. The Newsletter pointed out the ship’s swimming pool was not filled with water and that mothers were worried that children might fall through the railings and plunge 40 feet into the harbour .

Stories about the Patris becoming a Peyton Place may or may not be true , the article continued. From this very paragraph alone it can be seen that the Darwin Newsletter was no bland government publication.

Nightcliff politician Dawn Lawrie featured in another story and firmly stated that former residents should be allowed return to the city , despite the claim that they would strain resources. Tourists , she pointed out, were being allowed to come to Darwin and they had to eat . If the buses bringing them in were not fully equipped they would be straining the food supplies. She was quoted as saying : “Bugger the tourists .They are part of Darwin’s bread and butter , but our first concern should be for Darwin people kept down south.” She went on to say that she was more than a bit browned off by tourists. “At one stage there was a private helicopter flying over to gawk at the city. When one swooped over my house, I couldn’t restrain myself and gave them a very rude sign.”

Mayor Ella Stack told the Newsletter she would like to provide facilities for hippies who passed through Darwin on the route to and from Asia to overcome the smelly Lameroo Beach situation and that drug dealers would get short shrift. A local artist, Eddie Collins, provided cartoons.

Through his involvement with the Chinese community in Bendigo and Melbourne , John Ball arranged for a cutting of the ancient Bodhi tree in Thailand under which Buddha is said to have received enlightenment thousands of years ago to be sent to Darwin for the Chinese Temple rebuilding program. A Chinese message was also included in the paper. Former NT News journalist, Bluey Harley,evacuated as a result of Cyclone Tracy , supplied a lighthearted column of anecdotes and there were several items from the NT News.

The June 2 edition , the last , contained extensive information about the Darwin Reconstruction Fair, including an interview with Melbourne artist and conservationist, Neil Douglas, photographed with local journalist /author and environmentalist, the late Barbara James , he having interesting views about how the city could be rebuilt, the Hong Kong approach mentioned .

Ball and Steedman were involved in a variety of projects which resulted in them dealing with Sandra and Kerry Byrnes at the Graphic Systems printery, who later became proprietors of the independent newspaper, the Darwin Star (see our series The Darwin Star Media Wars ). Steedman compiled an extensive report of some 300 pages ,with about l600 pages of appendices , on how to cope with a natural disaster anywhere in Australia. This , he said, had been chopped down, censored, re-written ,turned about and came out as something he did not quite recognise .

Ball later played a key part in a community newspaper , The New Darwin, about which Little Darwin is building a file that will result in another feature in this series. As part of the Back to Darwin event, Steedman was one of many journalists who returned to see how the city had progressed a year after Cyclone Tracy. An urgent matter forced him to reluctantly cut short his stay in Darwin on that occasion.

MODERN CRICKETERS ARE WIMPS !

Here is proof positive that today's highly paid cricketers are a pack of wusses. Ponting breaks a finger and drops out . A Pommie bowler tears a muscle and limps off the field. In 1943 these cricketers( above ) had broken necks and were bashing away at the pill- no protective box, pads, helmet, sunnies, sun block ,chewing gum. The wicket keeper bounced about like an indian rubber ball despite his serious injuries . It is an illustration from a WW11 book about advances in treating fractures and broken bones in Servicemen . Another photo shows plaster encased players crowding a soccer goal ,eager to head the ball , which would be really painful.

WRITER PRAISED DARWIN JOURNALIST

Gene Janes has a place in the pulp fiction history of Australia with his books in collections from the 1950s and 1960s in the Australian National Library, the Victorian Library and several universities here and NZ.

Acclaimed novelist, Ruth Park, who died in Sydney recently, aged 93 ,was a fan of the Darwin journalist /author Gene Janes. In 1975 she supported an application by Janes for a Literature Board grant to write a book about Cyclone Tracy . Park wrote that she had known his fiction and fact pieces for 15 years and had admired his firm, craftsmanlike grasp of style and form .

Janes, she added, was a classic example of a fine writer sidetracked by personal responsibilities into too much journalism. He had a terse originality and an intuitive feeling for Australian character.

The Calvert Publishing Company ,Sydney, said Janes had been one of its most popular authors who wrote commissioned stories with army, navy and airforce settings. He had also written a detective series and a number of romance and mystery stories , his books translated into several languages. One of his works- about the Z Force Commandoes - was made into a film.

A Britisher , who had worked at the BBC as a boy, he had dealings there with the spy ,Guy Burgess, who defected to Russia .

Janes was attracted to Darwin by the NT News editor, Jim Bowditch. While at the News he wrote an illustrated serial about Australia being run by an Aboriginal government.

The disappearance of his packet of prawns from the fridge at the News resulted in him being sacked after he had a row with the then editor and chased him down the room , an episode which got a mention in the independent Darwin Star .

Bowditch and Janes worked together on a proposed biography of millionaire Mick Paspalis , never written, which became a contentious matter in which Sir Norman Young ,chairman of News Adelaide, was involved.

It is understood Janes and Bowditch received $1000 each for the work they had put into the book, Gene buying his first ever lawn mower. His widow lives in Darwin .