Murdoch's Flagship by Cryle Denis;

Author:Cryle, Denis;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing

Deamer, Brass and the turn to the Asia-Pacific

The Australian had begun publication at a time of changing international relations and geo-political shifts. At the end of the Menzies era in 1964–65, Asia loomed larger in the emerging national consciousness, not only for the trade considerations already discussed but also in matters of security and defence. Deamer’s own experience, like Ramsey’s, was symptomatic of this trend, based as much on renewed curiosity as upon the uncertainties surrounding Australia’s role in the region. Indonesian specialist James Mackie confirmed Deamer’s interest in Asia. Before his London assignment as Herald and Weekly Times editor, Deamer enrolled in Mackie’s Indonesian course at Melbourne University and wrote a favourable review of his pamphlet opposing the White Australia policy.16 In his Melbourne days, Deamer was acquainted with renowned Asia watcher William McMahon (‘Mac’) Ball and began a lifelong friendship with Creighton Burns, a respected Asian correspondent and future editor of the Age.

Not content to cultivate strong academic and journalistic expertise in Asia, Deamer, who ‘wanted to have a look’17 for himself, accompanied Mackie on a short trip to Indonesia in late 1964, less than a year before a bloody coup brought Suharto to power at the expense of his predecessor, Sukarno. When their original plan to fly from Jakarta to Dili encountered problems, the two men endured an agonisingly long trip by taxi, car and train in appalling heat and conditions to be part of Deamer’s Asian apprenticeship. According to Mackie, Deamer possessed enduring qualities of curiosity and stamina, mental and physical, which put him ‘a long way ahead of the pack in knowing these were the things which were important’.18 Donald Horne, a close friend of Deamer’s, also took decisive action in his position as editor of the Bulletin at this period. One of his first decisions was to remove its offensive White Australia masthead when he assumed the editorial chair in 1961.19 In his 1980 book Time of Hope, Horne confirms that the Australian was equally outspoken. It greeted the official dismantling of the White Australia policy in March 1966 with ‘relief and gratitude’, deploring Australia’s longstanding ‘illiberal immigration policy’ which had ‘rightly earned the contempt and abuse of many in Asia we would like to consider our friends’.20

This new openness on the part of Deamer’s mentors, including Mackie and McMahon Ball, corresponded with an increased coverage of Asian affairs in the press by the mid-1960s. Sir James Plimsoll, Secretary of External Affairs, observed in 1965 that Australian newspapers were devoting greater prominence and space to Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore than most leading US papers.21 Bill Hayden, speaking in parliament a year later, put this in perspective when he pointed out the ‘paucity of full-time correspondents in Asia’ and the tendency to carry news reports prepared ‘incidentally’ rather than ‘primarily’ for Australian consumption.22 The Australian, while employing UPI and Agence France-Presse for regional cable reports, often unsatisfactorily, moved to redress this situation with the appointment of former Bulletin editor Peter Hastings as its Asian correspondent, with a brief to cover Indonesia and New Guinea as well as ASEAN affairs.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.