Posted in Little Darwin , January 21, 2022.
Following the recent post sparked by the in memoriam notice for journalist John Loizou , who died nine years ago , a January 1980 file emerged about the managing editor of the Northern Territory News, John Hogan , complaining about an item in Scurrilous, a column for political aficionados , in the independent Darwin Star , of which Loizou was editor at the time .
Scurrilous upset Hogan by saying he had decided to set an example for his staff back at the factory (newspaper) by dropping out of the Friday Club, a " select team of Darwin businessmen and upper echelon public servants " who had a leisurely lunch on that day when two editions of the paper-the daily and the weekender- were being produced .
It went on to say : Thoughtfully , Mr Hogan has decided that it is not proper for him to be enjoying the fleshpots while his workers gobble takeaways at their desks and slip out for a furtive shot of the old kickapoo juice ...if lucky.
Another member of the Friday Club , a top public servant, Martyn Finger, was also reported to be thinking about foregoing the Friday happy hour .
With such selfless men, Scurrilous said the Territory's future was assured.
Hogan, later to become editor of the Townsville Bulletin , responded by writing a letter to the Australian Press Council complaining about the "insulting and abusive comment "- disguised as fact , apparently with the express intention of ridiculing him and disrupting personnel relations at the News.
He believed the author was a member of the Australian Journalists' Association who had committed a serious breach of the AJA code of ethics.
The matters , he submitted, were serious enough to warrant Press Council adjudication. It was pointed out to Hogan the Press Council only dealt with complaints against a newspaper, not the author .
Loizou was sent a copy of Hogan's letter... this resulted in Scurrilous taking another bite out of the Friday Club and the NT News .
It said Scurrilous was busily building a fallout shelter , convinced there will be no peace in our time due to Hogan's response, his letter of complaint run in full .Then it commented that it was amazing that Mr Hogan did not know how the Press Council works.
Scurrilous could be wrong , it continued ." Is Mr Hogan still attending the Friday Club?" Adding more spice to the luncheon , Scurrilous said it was inclined to write to the Press Council drawing attention to "the moral decadence" displayed at the NT News.
The News , it added, had been accused of running sexist advertisements and not so very long ago , the newspaper had used bits of fishing line to lift the skirt of a young girl so that her knickers could be photographed.
Perhaps it was more a case for the Festival of Light than the toothless Press Council ? It ended : Ho hum.
(Media, Loizou, Darwin.)
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| Vallis. |
Sydney Morning Herald article , April 12 , 2013.
Memorial services and public tributes in Darwin, Hanoi and Dili marked the death of journalist John Loizou, who had a 54-year career in radio, newspapers and online publishing, ranging across northern Australia and Southeast Asia.
Loizou was buried in Darwin with a traditional Aboriginal smoking ceremony, while Vietnamese colleagues in Hanoi stopped work in his memory and East Timor's Fretilin Party paid tribute.
Loizou would have appreciated the diverse acknowledgments; his life's work was shaped around the notion that Australia's Top End was an integral part of Southeast Asia.
During parliamentary debate on a condolence motion, both sides of Territory politics described Loizou's reporting as balanced and fair. Yet he called himself a Marxist and, while never joining a political party, was prepared to cross the line separating journalism from social activism.
John Brendan Loizou was born in Melbourne on June 20, 1942, to a Greek Cypriot immigrant, Vasilios Loizou and his Tasmanian-born wife, Gladys (nee Jackson). John's education never went beyond Dandenong Technical School but at 17 he was promising enough to win a prized ABC cadetship.
Proficient at shorthand , the ABC sent him to Darwin, where he met Olive Kennedy , a member of the stolen generation, and they married in 1964.
Loizou became a respected member of Olive's extended Walpiri family around Phillip Creek. In an ABC radio documentary long after Olive's death, Loizou recorded the Phillip Creek children's experiences of family fragmentation under government policies of assimilation.
After a stint back in Melbourne at The Age, Loizou returned to Darwin to work at the Northern Territory News under its crusading editor Jim Bowditch, who championed such unpopular causes as Aboriginal land rights and opposition to the Vietnam War.
(Later , In Darwin , John teamed up with Christina Pas , who ran the popular Restaurant Cri , about which it was hoped she would pen a book, a keen photographer , who wrote an essay on Xavier Herbert , author of award winning novels Capricornia and Poor Fellow My Country . A dynamic couple , they produced newspapers , including the Southeast Asian Times , which Cri continued online after John's death.)
Loizou's sympathetic coverage of Aboriginal actions such as the occupation of Quail Island, which stopped RAAF practice-bombing of an area containing sacred sites, and the Larrakia people's successful claim to land at Kulaluk in suburban Darwin was crucial in the battle for public opinion, according to anthropologist Bill Day, an adviser to the Larrakia claim.
UPCOMING : Rerun of Loizou's Scurrilous clash with an editor .
(Reporter,Loizou , Asia.)
