|
|
|
|
|
Issue 829 |
 |
|
 |
|||
|
|
|
|
• Regulars • Home Main News Letters Horoscopes Employment Around Town Art News Entertainment Accommodation Eateries Real Estate  • Columns • Politics Local MPs Computing Gardening Book Reviews Movie Reviews Sports News • Services • Echo Links Message Board Personals Classifieds Mailing List Subscriptions Back Issues Privacy Disclaimer Contact Us |
IB: It was lovely. I've always enjoyed my profession. They were much gentler times of course. Woman journalists usually began on the women's pages. There were very few women in the newsroom in those days. But the advantage of starting on the Women's pages was that you got a very good all round training. We used to meet ships and aeroplanes as well as cover social events. We would do stories and do subbing and page makeup, so probably we learnt more than the fellows did as a cadet on the newspaper. WOB: One of your first assignments was covering the 1959 tour of Princess Alexandra? IB: That was my first major assignment. I was sixteen. I was sixteen and the feeling was the princess was nineteen and so they sent a young cadet to cover the tour. Wasn't I lucky?? So I went all over Queensland, I had a terrific time! I'd never been away from home. This was heady stuff. WOB: We certainly perceived royalty differently in those days… IB: Yes. The Queen was still a very popular figure in those days. We were very much part of the British Empire then, we supported the monarchy and it was a gala time. Queensland was celebrating its centenary and wherever the princess went she was very warmly welcomed. I did a lot of royal tours. I covered the Queen and I did Prince Phillip and I covered Princess Margaret. They're good fun because you meet the royals. You meet them on the record and off the record. It's always very interesting to meet them off the record where you're not allowed to discuss about what was talked about. You've got to remember what Australia was like all those years ago. We didn't have the communication network we have today. WOB: I don't think anyone was anywhere near as sceptical about royalty as they are these days either… IB: Oh, no. They were good times and there was no security. The separation that exists now didn't exist. We gave [Princess Alexandra] a farewell party and she trotted along to it. We used to sing the "I like Aeroplane Jelly" song (why we sung it, I don't know), but the princess had heard about this and low and behold she asked to hear the Aeroplane Jelly song. So there we were, the Australian Press - there were about forty of us - singing the song for the Princess. You can hardly imagine that happening today. WOB: Far from it! IB: We had a lot of fun.
WOB: Were there many senior women journalists around you at that time to gain inspiration from? IB: At the Woman's Weekly there were. That magazine was run by women. But I was following in my father's footsteps, he was a journalist. I grew up knowing the business and knowing all these people. My Dad knew everybody. They used to come to our house and so on. WOB: So you had ink in your veins? IB: And I still do. It just won't go away! WOB: Of course, you didn't stay only in journalism… IB: No, but I've always stayed in communications. That's what I've always done. I've stayed in the area that I know, and I think that is communications. I've worked in radio and I currently work in television, and I'm still writing a column. I do occasional features for the Woman's Weekly and even my work that I did for the government in the field of HIV/AIDS was essentially a communication role. WOB: So in terms of journalism, you've also been an editor and a publisher? IB: I've been editing since I was 23! I became women's editor of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph when I was 23 and really I've been editing ever since. After that I went and worked in England as a subeditor and then I returned and resumed being women's editor. Ultimately I became editor of Cleo and then I became editor of the Woman's Weekly. Later Rupert Murdoch asked me to be editor-in-chief of the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs, which he had bought from Sir Frank in the '70s. So I became editor in chief of the two newspapers on which I started my training. WOB: Full circle? IB: A satisfactory result. WOB: Do you have what you consider a high point of achievement in publishing? IB: I've just been privileged to have so many. Starting a magazine like Cleo, which was the first new mass-marketed magazine to be launched in Australia for years and years. Becoming editor of the Woman's Weekly was a top job for a woman journalist and it's a great magazine to edit. I absolutely adored it! WOB: It's an institution really. IB: Yes. WOB: You pushed a lot of boundaries with Cleo didn't you? IB: Yeah. It's a much different magazine today. But when it started back in the '70s, Cleo had a much broader range of articles. In contrast to today's magazine which is pretty frivolous really. Our Cleo had humour, it had a lot of health and sex articles. It did talk about sex (because we forget how little we knew back then) but it also looked at environmental issues, it looked at the plight of women in other countries, it looked at population problems. It was the forerunner of all the magazines that have spun off in the time since then. WOB: Has the day of the generalist publication passed? IB: I think there's a role for general interest magazines but it's like everything, you have to read the market well and you have to say, "what is the market looking for?" Being an editor is not enough these days, you've also got to be a marketer. You have to understand how your market is feeling, what it wants to know. You have to look at where women are travelling (if you're talking about the women's market). You've got women being better educated today than ever before in Australia's history. What kind of material is this woman looking for? And then you've got to balance all that with the busy lifestyles everybody leads. How much time do people have? And you've also got to look at the fears… What impact does something like Sept 11 have on all of us and are we looking for more yet in our reading? You've got to analyse all of these things all of the time and work them into your editorial approach. WOB: Not an easy task! IB: As I told Kerry Packer many times: Editors do not grow on trees! We're very special people. WOB: You've also dabbled in radio and television… IB: I did a primetime shows here in Sydney on 2UE, 2KY, and I worked at 2GB. I like radio, it's a fun medium. It's a demanding medium - I think it's the most demanding of the mediums. WOB: It's very immediate. IB: It's VERY immediate. You always have to be there. It doesn't matter how you feel, or what else may be on your mind, when the microphone goes on you're there. It's you and that listener for however long your show is, and most of us do three hours or three-and-a-half hours. You really have to focus on the communication between you and the listener. WOB: Moving on to the writing side of your life, you've also penned four works of non-fiction and a novel… IB: Yes. At the [Byron Bay Writers] Festival I'll be talking more about my autobiography, A Passionate Life, which came out as a hardback in '98. Then I re-edited it and it came out in a paperback version at the end of last year. WOB: Was that re-editing a fine-tuning or something more substantial? IB: Penguin wanted to bring it out in paperback as obviously its cheaper and more affordable that way. I updated it to last year because my dad had died in between writing the first version and this one. I looked at some of the things I'd written and thought, I can do better than that, I can improve on that. When I wrote it the first time my father was very ill. When you go back and revisit something a few years on, it's amazing how differently you can see things. WOB: And of course the vast majority of writers write, release the book and that's it as it's always going to be… IB: It doesn't often happen. As I was updating it anyway, when I looked at some of the chapters I thought, hmmm, I believe I think differently now, I might adjust this a tad. I like the paperback version better than the hardback. It's not a bad book I think. I think it flows reasonably well. WOB: What actually prompted you to write books as distinct from journalism? IB: Publishers kept coming to see me! We think you should write a book they said. The fiction came about because the Woman's Weekly ran a short fiction piece of mine. I'd been invited to write a small romantic piece and the Weekly loved it. This prompted Penguin to call and say, "we rather like the way you write fiction, have you ever thought about writing a novel?" I said no, not really. And they said, "we think you could, we think you should". So that's how I came to write a novel. WOB: Do you think it's a natural progression for a journo anyway? IB: I think most journalists think that they have a book in them. Everybody does. Everybody's always saying, "oh, I'm going to write a book". But if you like writing it is, and I do like writing. I like words and I love writing. The reason I've always kept writing is I think you must never stop. It's like practicing the piano, when you stop you loose your technique. WOB: And you're writing at the moment? IB: I'm writing my second novel. The publisher wants me to be quicker. I'm feeling the heat of the publisher right now [laughs]. You now how it is, you've got to have a deadline. When I began I said, "what's the deadline?" And she said, "as soon as you finish it, we'll publish it!" It's all back on me again. I need a deadline! [laughs] WOB: Are you a widely read person? IB: In this business you have to be. WOB: So you enjoy reading?
IB: I love reading. I love books. I never have enough time to read because you're always reading for articles, for television or you see something and you think, that looks interesting I might just browse through that. If I see a new magazine I buy it. I read all the papers in the morning. That's just the way I was trained. My father said that if you don't read the newspapers or listen to the news you can't be a journalist. From a very young age it's what I've always done. WOB: As an avid reader, what's a book you've read recently? IB: [thinks for awhile] I read John Grisham's latest book. In later life I've discovered that I quite like thrillers. I never thought I liked murders and thrillers and things, but a friend introduced me to Patricia Cornwall and then I moved on to John Grisham. Patricia Cornwall I adore. But otherwise I read autobiographies. I'm reading Don Watson's book about Paul Keating at the moment. WOB: I haven't had the pleasure yet, but by all accounts it's a very satisfying read… IB: He writes beautifully. It's a beautifully written book. It's really wonderful to see lovely writing. WOB: And it doesn't hurt having a fascinating subject… IB: Yes, Keating is a fascinating subject isn't he. Such a force in our lives. Whether you liked him or not, he challenged us all. We'd either get really cranky or we'd love him. It's terrific to be able to evoke that kind of response. WOB: A thing many people seem to have only realised with hindsight… IB: Yes. It's good to be able to read about history when it's still contemporary enough to be able to remember it all. We had our views and now we can have a look at this other behind-the-scenes look. WOB: You'll be appearing at this year's Byron Bay Writers Festival in conversation with columnist/writer Ruth Ostrow, dare we speculate on where the conversation will lead? IB: I haven't the foggiest. Anything could happen! WOB: Lastly, over the years you've used your high public profile to champion some very noteworthy causes (such as a whole raft of woman's issues and HIV awareness), what are you passionate about in the year 2002? IB: I've just joined the Prostate Cancer Foundation because I think the incidence of prostate cancer in Australia should be of concern and I think more money needs to be raised for research. I think men need a helping hand here! It affects many men, with around the same incidence as breast cancer in women. I am the national spokesperson for the Arthritis Foundation. But I'm busy at the moment with the inaugural Habitat Women Build - it's part of Habitat for Humanity - whose aim is to eliminate poverty housing. What it does is use volunteers to build homes for people in communities who are in needy circumstances. Woman Build is the first one in Australia to be built by all women. We've been building a house in Sydney's West for a young family with three children who have moved seventeen times in seven years. We're building a home for this family and we're handing it over in August. It's not a free thing, they have to be able to afford to pay back a non-interest, non-profit loan over a twenty year time frame. That gives them pride of ownership. It's important for people to have pride of ownership! It's terrific because all sorts of people - all sorts of women - have come from all over the place to help on this project. It's a wonderful idea. WOB: It must give you quite a sense of achievement to participate in a project like this? IB: Yes, and it gives me the opportunity to meet all these wonderful woman who are enjoying building a home! WOB: Thank you very much for your time, Ita Buttrose. IB: It's been a pleasure. Recommended Festival EventsWord on Books recommends the following events at this year's Byron Bay Writers Festival:
Festival programmes, tickets and booking enquiries can be made on (02) 6685 6554 or visit the website at www.byronbaywritersfestival.com. Read more recent book reviews and author interviews here!
|
Use the form below to search through the Northern Rivers Echo Newspaper web site.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
 |
© 2002 - 2005 TAOW Pty Ltd |
 |
Word On Books 
Ita Buttrose is practically an institution in Australian public life and the media (really, how many Australian's are identified by just their first name?!). She has had a distinguished five-decade plus career that has spanned journalism, radio, television and publishing, as well as being a high-profile campaigner on numerous health and social issues. With her appearance at the Byron Bay Writers Festival a week away, Word on Books spoke to Ita about what she rightly calls her "passionate life".
