September 16, 2026
Career: Yea Chronicle
Taking over from the Dignams Monday, April 2, 1984 I bought The Yea Chronicle business from long-time publisher Thomas Michael Dignam on April 2, 1984. Raised on farmland that now incorporates the Yea Golf Course, Thomas Michael Dignam was Yea’s most enduring newspaper editor. Tom was son of William and Mary Dignam. His older brother was Willie;…
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Career: Victorian Media
Victorian Media Corporation was an ill-conceived roller coaster ride to Hell-and-back in the 22 months between September 1983 and June 1985. Victorian Media started as a little-thought-out dream to replicate a community newspaper network across the state, as a carbon copy of the great Leader group of suburban newspapers in metropolitan Melbourne. But in less…
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Career: Leader Newspapers
In the early 1980s, I was Regional Manager of Leader Associated Newspapers Pty Ltd. The Registered Office of Leader was 160 Whitehorse Rd, Blackburn.The Northern Group – comprising eight newspapers – was based at 543-545 High St, Northcote. The Advertising Staff Contacts list from the time was: Regional ManagerAsh Long Area Manager – Diamond Valley,…
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Career: Nation Review
Nation Review had more lives than the proverbial cat. Fringe publisher Geoff Gold took over the publication, converting it to a monthly A4 publication, with former GTV-9 publicist an ex-Sunday Observer editor Chris Forsyth at the helm. Mini-magnate Peter Isaacson tried to reincarnate ‘The Ferret’ with Michael Worner and Ian Finlayson as his publishers of The Review. Even…
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Career: Farrago
Universities had been long renowned for ‘skit’ or parody newspapers. During my brief tertiary career at the University of Melbourne (1975-77), The Uni Star made its debut. And I guess I could have perhaps been slightly responsible. Maybe. Farrago was the weekly campus newspaper at Melbourne, and in 1976 it was under the joint (good…
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Career: Maxwell Newton
Publisher Maxwell Newton “thought that printing comic books would be an easy way to make money back in 1975”, says Daniel Best in his 2014 book, The Amazing Rise & Spectacular Fall of Newton Comics. Maxwell Newton was publishing the Sunday Observer newspaper in Melbourne, and desperately looking for work to occupy his presses for the other six…
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Career: Farrago
ustralia had an unlikely TV star and Gold Logie winner in Norman Gunston in 1975. The Gunston character first appeared as a minor character to appear in a single sketch in the second series of the cult Australian TV comedy series The Aunty Jack Show in 1973. Cast member Garry McDonald portrayed Gunston as a dull and…
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Career: Sunday Observer
A clear snapshot of the mindset of Observer publisher Maxwell Newton is given in the interview I conducted with him in 1975. I was aged 18. The interview was published in Farrago, the University of Melbourne on June 4, 1975. “Publisher of the “soar-away” Sunday Observer, Maxwell Newton now holds the position of director of the newly formed Workers Party. “Quoting…
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Career: Farrago
As an ambitious 18-year-old journalist, I requested an interview with Australia’s top-rating TV star of the time, Ernie Sigley. It was 1975 and Sigley was besting the ratings with a twice-weekly variety program at GTV-9 Melbourne. Sigley was not granting any interviews at the time … except this one to me, organ-ised through the channel’s…
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Career: Music Week
Flashback to the Sunbury Music Festival Sunday, January 27, 1974 In the early 1970s, the Australian pop music scene was lively, and one of the annual highlights was the Sunbury Pop Festival. Ahead of the 1972-73 festivals, in my part-time job with The Review/Nation Review newspapers, I had seen the Festival tickets being printed at Stockland Publishing…
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