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It was a hot and sultry night as Don Bentley walked the streets of Hobart during his break from the sub-editors’ desk at the Chronicle. The scent of flowers hung in the air but Bentley’s thoughts were far from the summer blooms in Franklin Square. They were eight thousand miles away, in central Africa. Bentley had spent a decade of his career reporting from Africa and his thoughts often strayed there, especially on nights like this when Hobart’s rare hot and humid weather … [Read more...] about A rumpus on the night shift

SHE came one morning, like a star from the films the reporters liked to watch at the Gaumont, the Ritz and the Odeon. She had long, shiny blond hair and ruby-red lips. Her name was Marion Simpson but she could have been Veronica Lake from the golden age of Hollywood. She had finally brought sophistication, erudition and designer fashion to the office of the Woking New and Mail. Or, as ace reporter John Gerard put, it: she had a touch of class. Not that she would wear … [Read more...] about A Touch of Class

A nose for news: some journalists have it, some don’t. In the old days, in the age of journalism Don Bentley lamented, it was an essential prerequisite to being a reporter. In modern times, news sense, what made a “story’’ and what didn’t, had become somewhat dulled and blunted, probably because news itself had lost its power. It was now submerged in a sea of frivolity and celebrity, the trite and inconsequential vying for what was really important. But that was Don Bentley … [Read more...] about The sting

THE town of Woking was not big enough for Alf James and his nemesis, John Bateson. The titans of tight deadlines were two old warriors on a collision course. Alf James regarded Woking as his town, and Bateson the intruder. After all, James had worked there most of his working life, the last 20 years of it as editor of the Woking Herald. The town was comfortable and familiar, like the charcoal-grey suites he wore to work each day. This happy state of affairs had been … [Read more...] about The Unruly Journalist

THE first thing a young reporter stepping out on a journalistic career has to determine is what constitutes news, and what doesn’t. News might be the basic commodity of daily journalism but it is not easily defined. What might be news to one person might appear idle gossip to others or, worse, a piece of information so inconsequential that it is not worth talking or writing about at all. Many a cub reporter, starting out on the winding and tortuous road to a career in news, … [Read more...] about A nose for news