Who will run the Sunday Age, The Sun News Pictorial reunion

17. Who will run the Sunday Age?



By Stephen Mayne

With Alan Oakley moving on to edit The SMH, two candidates have emerged as front-runners to move in to The Sunday Age chair – Simon Mann, the perennial deputy at The Age who was passed over for Andrew Jaspan and another senior Age editor Paul Ramadge.

Mann is apparently only prepared to take it on if he won't be reporting to Jaspan. Mann is popular, so such an appointment would undoubtedly create a deluge of hacks from the daily lining up to join him on the Sunday.

Jaspan and Oakley might both be English but they are not believed to have got on too well, so both are happy to be seeing less of each other with Oakley's move to Sydney.

But you have got to wonder about the Fairfax selection process. How can Oakley not even be on the shortlist for The Age job in 2004, yet a year later he is deemed the best candidate to edit the company's flagship publication in Sydney?

The answer is that Mark Scott largely ran The Age process in 2004, but then Brian Evans was brought back from New Zealand and appointed chief operating officer so he ran The SMH process, even though former All Black captain David Kirk had been announced as CEO in August.

Oakley had also put some more runs on the board at The Sunday Age over the past year. Given that Oakley had experience editing Australia's biggest selling Sunday paper, The Sunday Telegraph, the biggest selling daily, the Herald Sun, and the biggest selling regional, The Newcastle Herald, it's odd that he wasn't seriously considered for The Age.

Can anyone else in Australia claim Oakley's record of editing five titles in three cities? Frank Devine and David Armstrong are up there if you include overseas titles but Mark Day is the only one to go close domestically. Day edited The Sunday Mail in Adelaide, The Truth, The Daily Mirror, The Australian, Australian Playboy and Australian Penthouse – which is quite a record, but not quite up with Oakley once he gets The SMH under his belt next month.



21. A cracking 15 year reunion for The Sun



By Stephen Mayne, Sun cadet in 1989 – the year the HWT took on 29 new hacks

About 100 hacks who cut their teeth on that great tabloid, The Sun News Pictorial, gathered for a reunion at Melbourne's Duke of Wellington hotel last night and fondly remember those wonderful days before Rupert Murdoch merged it in September 1990 with that financial basket case, The Herald, and installed Piers Akerman as editor-in-chief for a reign of terror.

The 15th anniversary of the paper's passing was a cracking night for all concerned and they flew in from as far afield as Darwin (Terry Moylan), Byron Bay (Paul Cunningham) and Maroochydore (Malcolm Elder). Even Colin Duck, the paper's last editor who told Rupert the merger was a big mistake, put in an appearance.

Crikey was first in the door at 6.01pm and last out at 11.40pm, although a hard core of about 30 kicked on to The Exeter Hotel in Bourke Street after Duke proprietor Brian "The Whale" Roberts failed to do the decent thing and keep the doors open for more great memories and catch-ups.

The festivities kicked on to about 3am with names like Ian Jackson, Greg Thom, Paul Cunningham and Craig Dixon, who hosted the party celebrating Akerman's departure in 1992, figuring prominently in the late night stayer stakes.

Akerman's remarkable letter in The Australian was mentioned plenty of times and it is fair to say that animosity towards the big guy has not subsided over the years. One slurring hack borrowed from Maxwell Smart: "if only he had used his genius for good instead of evil".

Unusually for old journos it was a very upbeat, funny and positive night and unlike many old Sun functions, there wasn't a blue. In fact the only time you could raise a scowl was the mention of Piers' name. Not that his name came up that often but when it did it was usually under TCA (that **** Akerman).

Terry Moylan, who worked as a reporter and sub at The Sun, featured prominently and almost every single conversation he had for the night included reference to his most famous story (for The Truth) about Billy Snedden dying on the job.

Here are a few awards:

Best preserved: Former chiefs of staff David Guthrie Jones and John Beveridge, who both looked younger than they did when occupying that hot seat more than 15 years ago.

Best dressed: Antony "The Cat" Catalano, the Italian Stallion now earning a fortune in management at The Age.

Baldest: legendary police roundsman John Silvester, fresh from Saturday's cracking scoop in The Age with Wendy Pierce confessing to the Walsh Street police killings.

Best performance: Peter Klages, now a senior executive at Fairfax, who performed the old Sun Subs Club song - Bang go the Bins.

Best on ground: Herald Sun hack Terry Brown, who organised the turn, led the festivities from the front for most of the night before faltering in the home straight. Did well to still be able to form words when it came time to make a speech.

It really is a shame that no-one from the three other papers that suffered Rupert's "death by merger" on AFL grand final day in 1990, The Herald, The Mirror and The Telegraph, bothered to get together to mark an important anniversary. The Sun reunion was so much fun they really should do it every year!




25. Meet GWA - Australia's oldest public company board



A corporate governance expert writes:

Sorry to put down the story in Crikey yesterday but your very best mates at Gunns Ltd are mostly still working through their apprenticeship. You should have a look at GWA International, the Brisbane-based manufacturers who dominate the toilet market, which has six non-executive directors (NEDs) with a combined 122 years service on the board! How's this for a roll call:

Barry Thornton: 31 years, chairman and former CEO, joined in 1974 as Finance Director
Jim Kennedy: 13 years NED
David Barry : 26 years NED, joined GWA as a director in 1979 and "has had 36 year involvement with company"
Robert Anderson: 26 years a director since 1979, having joined the company in 1955
Martin Kriewaldt : 13 years NED
Geoff McGrath 13 years NED, former CEO from 1992-2003 and first joined group in 1982

That's a total of 122 years with an average tenure of 20.33 years each!

Meanwhile, a veteran investor writes:

I like the idea of a master list of long serving NEDs, try these for starters:

Argo Investments: John Paterson, 1969
Brickworks: Alan Bentley, 1984
Soul Pattinson: Robert Millner, 1984
Milton Corporation: John Church, 1986
Harvey Norman: Chris Brown, 1987

Stephen Mayne writes:

This will be a great list. Let's have a $500 million cut-off in terms of market capitalisation and track everyone who has been a NED of the same company from before 1995. Here are a few more to kick things along and please send your entries to smayne@crikey.com.au:

Meredith Hellicar: James Hardie chairman and director since 1992
Nick Greiner: QBE Insurance, September 1992
Brian Finn: Axa Asia Pacific, 1992
Mike Codd: Qantas, 1992
Elizabeth Alexander: Amcor, 1994
Adrienne Clarke: Woolworths, July 1994
David Crawford: BHP, 1994
Judith Sloan: Santos, September 1994
Dean Wills: Westfield, 1994
Trevor Eastwood: Wesfarmers chairman and director since 1994
Barbara Ward: CBA, 1994
Michael Robinson: Tabcorp chairman since 1994
Peter Wade: Tabcorp, 1994

Copyright © 2024 The Mayne Report. All rights reserved

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