Author’s note: Here’s Chapter 2. You can find Chapter 1 here, and a bit of background on what I’m trying to do here. Also this is appearing on Patreon (no charges or paid subscriptions) so if you so wish please subscribe.

In which we learn about Nick’s journey into journalism and life in a country town

Raised in Kew, one of Melbourne’s blue blooded inner eastern suburbs, and attending one of the local high end private schools, Nick’s marks were just good enough to get accepted into second-tier regional university’s communications and journalism program.

His original plan was to use that degree, combined with his minimal experience as a reporter and his old school boy and family contacts, to get into business reporting on a major financial paper, and then transition from journalist to financial market player with one of the big trading houses, financial companies, or even a bank and start making his personal fortune.

His poor school marks meant a commerce degree or MBA wasn’t an option and once he’d become a business reporter he intended to make it clear that in return for access, his reporting would be more than favourable to a group of people known for their thin skins when faced with any sort of criticism, personal or professional. He felt no guilt or ethical concerns about this.

“It’s what most people who work in the financial media do already so why should I rock the boat?” he told himself.

Nick’s academic achievements were minimal with study competing with, and often losing against partying and boozing. But they were enough to get a low paid job as junior reporter at a weekly newspaper in regional NSW, the sort of outlet which attracted trainee applications from the second or third tier of graduates. He’d been given the grunt work and worst of the stories as he learnt that regional journalism was often more about being part of a sausage factory production line to fill pages, and less about crafting well thought out, researched a balanced coverage.

But it gave him a taste of life in a small country town for someone who’s profile, as one of the people who reported on what was happening locally, was pretty high. That included the fact that that privacy went out the door.

One night after a boozy session at the local RSL he went home with one of the barmaids. Nothing special about that, but what he thought was a private night of casual sex became the biggest story in town over the following weekend. Everyone knew what had happened, thought they knew what had happened, and even if they didn’t, they were happy to make up the details. The only place it didn’t appear was in the paper he worked on. It was a lesson learnt. Keep your love life private.

Six months later Nick moved to The Beacon a thrice weekly publication in central Victoria, and he’d been there just over a year. In the newspaper world going from a weekly to three times a week publication was a step up. In reality the pay was only a bit better, and the sort of stories you did were no different. Everything from bull sales, to weddings, to what was happening in council. Mixed with that were stories on local hairdressers unhappy with zoning laws or roadworks, fundraisers for any number of causes and the efforts of the local sporting teams, particularly football.

For the reporters though, covering the local courts was always the cream. They provided a steady supply of stories on the drug and booze fuelled excesses of locals who didn’t realise once their misadventures were in the local paper it was a public record that’d chase them for the rest of their life.

That often meant fielding calls from an outraged plumber or hairdresser who lied to their boss about the fact they had been done for drink driving, drugs, domestic violence or any number of booze and drug fuelled stupidity which are a major part of life in regional Australia, but which no one wants to talk seriously about, only to be either sacked, or deemed a social pariah, after said boss read about it in the local rag. The calls often started with a request to remove the story, which would be refused. You could guarantee this would be followed by a threat that if the story wasn’t removed, then their lawyer would begin legal proceedings.

From that point if Nick had fielded the call the following conversation would go something like this:

“Yeah, sure. How about you get them to call us.”

He’d then continue, “But let me ask this. Why didn’t you have a lawyer in court when you were sentenced?” The question mostly went unanswered.

The threat had no teeth. The caller was either unemployed, or broke, or both. If the call continued then it’d most likely be a personal threat against his wellbeing, at which point Nick would hang up.

For country newspapers like The Beacon the courts provided a steady supply of words to fill the gaps in the papers for the rest of the week. That meant it wasn’t going to let a story filed from it go unchecked, and those who covered it didn’t do so alone until they’d shown they knew what the limits on what they could report were.

It was no surprise some land barons bought the local paper to ensure their less than saintly spawn stayed out of the news. For reporters doing courts provided enough stories to prove they were making a good contribution.

But while most of the threats were harmless, they had to remember they were living in a regional town, where anonymity was non existent’ . So it was worth being careful about where you went out to and who you hung with.

Even then Nick and his colleagues, had experienced being shirt fronted by a local sports star, business leader or farmer, demanding that they be reported on in only a positive way because, “Non one wants to read bad news.”

Certainly they didn’t want it, especially if they were the story.

On the Friday after Nick and Joe Simon had shared beers and bad journalism experiences at the local, Joe cleaned out his desk, his colleagues shared some cake and cheap champagne, and he walked out the door of The Beacon without looking back.

By Monday he was in Melbourne looking for work, and two weeks later he’d started as a media advisor, for a junior MP in the state Labor Government. Two weeks after his exit local TV Reporter Narelle Johnstone threw in the towel, and also made the move to the city. She picked up casual reporting and production shifts at Sky News, but after three months trying to meet the needs and whims of the trolls and crumb maidens who made up the slime filled talent pool of Sky After Dark, she’d had enough, and made the move to consumer PR, working for an agency promoting fruit drinks, energy bars and exercise clothing. She also moved permanently back into the room she’d been paying rent on for three years but only used on weekends.

For Nick those moves, and other events started to make him think about where his future laid, as it wasn’t in regional news and current affairs.

End

Hope you enjoyed this? Next week you’ll see a few bios on the characters appearing here. As always your thoughts and comments are welcome.

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Chapter 2 — Straight Faced: One person’s journey through the Australian political sausage factory