The Canberra Times' 90th anniversary, 1926-2016: How the newspaper front page has changed

The front pages of newspapers that do their duty responsibly must pay attention to a share of the world's, the nation's, the neighbourhood's disasters. Cats don't need this service, but of course thinking humans do. They, the cats' thinking owners, need to know – and from the front pages – that President Kennedy has been assassinated, that Colin Winchester's alleged murderer has been arrested.

Then, too (though disasters are usually inherently more urgent and truly newsy) must cats' owners be served with the occasional front page of novel, cheering news. So for example cats' owners deserved to be served the front page joy (with a joyful picture) of the news that our city's centenary was to feature a Skywhale.

Newspapers front pages are notoriously, reputedly, eye-catching and lurid. All-time classics include the immortal "Headless Body In Topless Bar" and the classic "Werewolf Seized In Southend [UK] – He fights police on all fours."

But an examination of 90 years of Canberra Times' front pages reminds us that this paper has never been that kind of paper.

Instead our front pages have erred on the side of the sobriety, ignoring any imagined werewolves. This paper's front page headlines have often been stark (as in "Whitlam Sacked: FRASER IS PRIME MINISTER") but almost never sensationalist and fibbing. If there was ever a newsroom temptation to give readers the occasional front page werewolf or alien abduction those temptations were fought off. In its 90 years The Canberra Times has taken the business of its front pages, these first pages of the first draft of history, very seriously.

Until February 19, 1942, this lucky country's good luck included being insulated, by history and by distance, from an enemy's attacks. But then on February 20, 1942, an alarmed front page of The Canberra Times shuddered "HEAVY JAPANESE BLOWS ON DARWIN. LARGE BOMBER FORCES IN TWO RAIDS."

"SYDNEY, Thursday. – Two Japanese raids were made on Darwin today by forces of twin-engined bombers, and considerable damage is reported ..."

The front page reported Prime Minister John Curtin putting on a brave, nation-rallying face.

"In this first battle on Australian soil ... Let us now each vow that this blow at Darwin shall gird our loins and steel our nerves."

The two air raids on Darwin were later found to have killed 235 people and wounded 350 and to have destroyed 30 aircraft and sunk 11 ships.

Canberra Times front page news reports on August 8, 1945, of the exploding of a nuclear weapon over Hiroshima gave a snapshot of mankind both swaggering (Harry S. Truman) and agonising (Winston Churchill) over what we had done.

"ALLIES PRODUCE SECRET WEAPON TO FORCE JAP SURRENDER. Atomic Bomb Promises Early End of War."

"President Truman [said] that the Japanese may now expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which had never been seen on the earth. The atomic bomb harnessed the basic power of the universe ..."

But just-deposed British prime minister Winston Churchill was warning that, "If not properly used, the discovery will be a frightful threat to humanity."

The Canberra Times of November 25, 1963, had to give harrowing front page news details of the Kennedy assassination including that famous, affecting picture of Jackie reaching for her husband moments after he was shot.

"Mrs Kennedy, riding in the car with the President ... threw herself over her stricken husband, crying, 'Oh, no!'"

"Representative Henry Gonzalez said he saw Mrs Kennedy, spattered with blood, kiss her dead husband's lips in a final farewell ..."

The Canberra Times' front page of Monday, December 18, 1967 had the melancholy headline "SEARCH FOR PM GOES ON – Mr Holt swam out long way, vanished."

"PORTSEA, Sunday. – A concerted effort to find the Prime Minister, Mr Holt, on the beaches of the Mornington Peninsula is due to resume at first light tomorrow.

"Mr Holt was last seen swimming in 15-foot-high seas by his companion, Melbourne businessman Mr Alan Charles Stewart, just before midday ..."

"Canberra congregations of all denominations were asked last night to remember Mr Holt and his family in their prayers."

"600 Million See Walk. Apollo wives relieved and happy," The Canberra Times' front page rejoiced on July 22, 1969.

"HOUSTON, Monday. – A television camera positioned at the bottom of the spacecraft's ladder recorded the scene as Armstrong's ghostly figure emerged from the space craft ..."

"Neil Armstrong, 38, became the first man to step on the moon at 12.56pm Canberra time yesterday, saying, 'That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.'

"The pair [Armstrong and 'Buzz' Aldrin] walked warily at first ... but as their confidence mounted they jumped, bounced and kangaroo-hopped gaily in front of their landing craft ..."

All the merriment of the Australian Christmas of 1974 was drained by Cyclone Tracy. The Boxing Day 1974 edition of The Canberra Times grieved "49 DEAD IN DARWIN CYCLONE".

Eventually it was learnt that Cyclone Tracy, thudding into Darwin in the small hours of Christmas Day 1974, had killed 66 people and devastated 80 per cent of the city. In the wake of the tragedy almost everyone, traumatised, left the city. Late in the following February the Whitlam Government established the Darwin Reconstruction Commission and within three years a new Darwin had arisen.

The Vietnam War, an indescribable horror for the Vietnamese and a cause of terrible grief and political and social turbulence in the United States and in Australia, came to a blessed end in late April 1975.

Canberra Times headlines of May 1, 1977, announced "SURRENDER IN VIETNAM".

"SAIGON, Friday. – South Vietnam surrendered to the communists today.

"The collapse came 24 hours after the last American flag was pulled down and the United States left the country it had spent almost 14 years trying to keep out of communist hands."

In the futile war more than one million people were killed, including 56,000 Americans and 494 Australians.

In the stories beneath the Times' dramatic front page headlines of November 12, 1975, ("Whitlam Sacked. FRASER IS PRIME MINISTER. Protests, strikes, backlash") one discerns a very conservative Australia, a radical's nightmare.

A nation's reformist prime minister has been summarily sacked but the Times' front page has no running amok to report and only a sprinkling of arrests. And meanwhile a companion story on the front page enthuses "NEWS BOOSTS SHARE LEVELS".

"Brokers and traders on Australian stock exchanges cheered loudly when the dismissal of Mr Whitlam was announced yesterday afternoon."

Australia was on its summer holidays and the media was struggling to find any news to report when suddenly news of the most ghastly kind erupted.

"80 DIE IN RAIL HORROR. Dead, dying pinned by bridge fall," a horrified Canberra Times reported, with hair-raising photographs, on Wednesday, January 19, 1977

"SYDNEY, Tuesday. – Rescue and medical teams toiled on tonight to reach scores of dead, dying and injured passengers from an express commuter train which slammed into and collapsed a steel-and-concrete bridge this morning at Granville in Sydney. Surgical teams worked desperately amid the wreckage to carry out amputations."

Beneath the headline "AZARIA'S MOTHER JAILED FOR LIFE" the October 30, 1982, front page of The Canberra Times reported that "Mrs Chamberlain stood stony-faced in the dock as Mr Justice Muirhead passed sentence."

Today this reminds us of how it was later thought that her failure to show the proper, expected, soap opera emotions during her seven-week trial helped convince the jury that she probably was a cold, soulless murderess.

"The Chamberlains," that day's Times reminded readers, "had maintained that a dingo had taken nine-week-old Azaria from their tent during a camping holiday at Ayers Rock. The Crown alleged Mrs Chamberlain had slit the baby's throat in the front seat of the family car ..."

Patriotically, euphorically, The Canberra Times celebrated the Rhode Island triumph of our Australia II with an "America's Cup Special Edition."

"That cup - it's ours: Australia II, with a nose for the wind, romps home," the special edition's 28 September 1983 front page frolicked.

Prime Minister Bob Hawke (wearing a mug lair's lurid jacket) was among those patriots to stay up all night to watch the crucial race on TV. The front page story reported the PM's vigil and that he had sent Australia II's millionaire owner Alan Bond an enthusiastic telex: "All Australians walk with pride beside you in your triumph."

Canberra Times archival sacred relics include a golden facsimile of this front page in a golden frame.

"Thousands greet the Pope," the front page of the Times genuflected on November 25, 1986. It was the morning after the day on which John Paul II, mostly cocooned in his popemobile, had entranced a great congregation outdoors at the National Exhibition Centre.

The paper's chief reporter of the event, carried away, (papal presences can turn reporters' heads) trilled in purple (papal?) prose that "The 90,000-strong crowd moved to the extremities of the National Exhibition Centre stadium in waves, like ripples through a pool of pins being raised by a passing magnet."

No miracles were reported, unless one counts the miraculous popularity of the tens of thousands of huge, foam-rubber hands (the Hand of Hope) sold to enable us all to wave at His Holiness in ways he would notice.

Our palatial (costing more than a billion dollars) new parliament house was opened by Her Majesty the Queen, a connoisseur of palaces, on May 9, 1988.

Next morning's Canberra Times beneath the heading "Nation celebrates new House," reported not only the formal pomp but also that unhappy Aborigines had chanted the reminder that this palace had been erected on what was "Aboriginal land! Always was! Always will be!"

The principled, liberal, pro-democracy Canberra Times was always openly in favour of the ACT's adoption of self-government (a courageous stance in a city substantially hostile to the proposal). On March 5, 1989, the paper's front page was able to report what was known of the previous day's first Assembly elections.

"ACT POLL FRACTURE," the paper fretted. With 51 per cent of votes counted by the time the paper had gone (late) to bed on Saturday.

So many votes had gone to foes of self-government, and especially to the No Self Government Party (NSG), that Rosemary Follett's Labor Party seemed doomed to have to do some demeaning bargaining. A Pryor cartoon showed an appalled Princess Rosemary likely to have to kiss the ugly NSG frog/toad (the warty brute is puckering up, expectantly) if she is to form government.

With the Raiders versus Balmain rugby league grand final of September 24, 1989 looming the prophetic Canberra Times prepared for the morning after with a poster carolling that "We Did It".

The morning after the epic match (we beat Balmain 19-14) and beneath the heading "Magnificent Mal" the front page boasted a post-match photograph of the magnificent Meninga juxtaposed with the Winfield Cup and, more importantly, with the paper's prophetic poster.

Unexpectedly, in November 1989, one of the most despised structures of the 20th century, the Berlin Wall, began to tumble down.

"The Wall Goes West – Thousands reunited in tumultuous embrace," the front page of The Canberra Times sang on 11 November 1989.

"WEST BERLIN: Thousands of Berliners have been reunited in a tumultuous embrace. As the rusted Iron Curtain twists and tears, many stood atop the Berlin Wall and hugged and cheered as East German border guards looked on in bewilderment.

"Since its creation in 1961, at least 80 people have been killed trying to cross the Wall."

The whole of the front page of The Canberra Times of January 18, 1991, was all about the intensification of a war in which Australia was actively on the side of US President George H.W. Bush's coalition.

Saddam Hussein was refusing to surrender. His Iraq still occupied oil-exporting neighbour Kuwait. Canberra Times front page pictures included an appropriately crazed-looking Saddam Hussein and a Saudi Arabian petrol storage facility burning after Iraqi attacks. Iraqi Scud missiles had been fired into Israel but the bigger news was of continuing waves of massive coalition air attacks against Iraqi targets.

Assistant Commissioner Colin Winchester was shot dead outside his Deakin home on the evening of January 10, 1989.

The Canberra Times' legendarily professional court reporter the late Rod Campbell covered the case and for the front page of December 24, 1992, was able to report (correctly, it proved) that "David Harold Eastman is expected to be charged this morning with the murder of Assistant Commissioner Colin Winchester."

"Mr Eastman spoke briefly to The Canberra Times from the city police station late yesterday. He said, 'This is the greatest miscarriage of justice since the Chamberlain case and I will be applying for bail in the morning'."

A many-storied Times front page of August 25, 1994, made room for a photograph of a jubilant Cathy Freeman walking a Commonwealth Games lap of honour in Brisbane's Centennial Stadium. In winning the Games' 400 metres she had just become the first Aboriginal to win a medal on a running track.

The Times reported that her decision to drape herself for her lap of honour in both the Aboriginal and Australian flags had upset a curmudgeonly white federal Liberal MP but that Leader of the Opposition Alexander Downer, had "rebuked" his MP for being so out of touch with the nation's fondness for Our Cathy.

At first word of the Tasmanian nightmare The Canberra Times sent a staff reporter of its own to cover it.

In this early account on the front page of April 29, 1996, (as she wrote the gunman, later to prove to be Martin Bryant, was thought to be holding hostages and keeping police at bay) she reported that "A young gunman ... described by witnesses as a blond-haired 'surfie' in his late teens, mowed down tourists and their children with an automatic rifle".

Promoted as a family-picnic event (tens of thousands of Canberrans were there for something an appalled poet later thought had the mood of a public hanging) the Royal Canberra Hospital was set for demolition by implosion. It went nightmarishly wrong.

"BLAST HORROR", the Times of July 14, 1997, deplored.

"A 12-year-old girl [later identified as Katy Bender] died instantly yesterday afternoon when chunks of razor-sharp metal shrapnel and masonry rained down on spectators lining the shore of Lake Burley Griffin for the demolition of the former Royal Canberra Hospital. Her family was about 450m from the blast."

In the Republic YES or NO referendum of Saturday, November 6, Canberrans, famously well-educated, progressive and enlightened, voted YES but were thwarted by the rest of backward, conservative Australia.

"Australia says NO," the Times front page of Sunday, November 7, grieved, reporting how "Australia will retain its links with the Queen following a thumping defeat for the republic in yesterday's referendum".

This front page was dominated by a picture of smirking, monarchist Prime Minister John Howard voting that, God save her, Her Majesty the Queen continue to long reign over us.

News editors at The Canberra Times decided that pictures were as eloquent as words in describing the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. The front page of September 12 was dominated by a big picture of the second tower of the World Trade Centre on fire and spectacularly disintegrating. In smaller pictures people's faces contorted in horror and terror sprang out at Times readers.

"Terror Blast. Evil On Our Doorstep. Hundreds killed in Bali attack. Scores of Australians feared dead," the horrified front page of the Times of October 14, 2002 reported.

A telling front page picture showed a stretcher being borne away in front of a backdrop of mangled buildings.

"At least 187 people were killed and more than 300 injured as a blast blew apart Kuta's Sari Club yesterday," the Times advised.

The final death toll of the Bali terror was 202 people (from 22 countries), 88 of them Australians.

The front page of The Canberra Sunday Times of January 19, 2003, glowed horrifically with the orange flames of Andrew Campbell's intrepidly-taken picture of a four-wheel drive vehicle in Holder exploding during the previous day's fires.

"DISASTER" the front page shrilled, beginning to describe how "driven by scorching temperatures and fierce winds, fires ripped through Canberra yesterday ..."

"With firefighters powerless to stop the awesome force of nature, thousands of terrified residents fled for their lives ..."

The fires killed four, injured 490 and destroyed more than 500 homes.

Today the accumulated statistics of the Japanese magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami still boggle the mind. More than 16,000 were killed, the total damages are estimated at $300 billion dollars (about 25 trillion yen).

All the front page of The Canberra Times of 12 March 2011 could do the day after the event was to was hint at the enormousness of it all with stories headed "Quake Tsunami Smashes Japan. Mass Evacuations Across The Pacific."

Patricia Piccinini's Skywhale was the controversial star of the 2013 Centennial jamboree and Canberrans got perhaps their first glimpse of the undeniably female behemoth in all her pneumatic glory in a picture on the front page of the Times of May 10, 2013.

The precious picture had been snaffled while Skywhale, yet to make its debut in Canberra skies, was undergoing semi-secret trials somewhere in the skies of the bush.

Today Canberrans know of Mr Fluffy premises galore in Canberra undergoing demolition.

But it was the front page of The Canberra Times of July 1, 2015, with its story "Mr Fluffy's reach revealed" that at last gave some perspective of the whole, city-wide imbroglio. The page brandished a list of Fluffy-poisoned places and noted too that "Mr Fluffy's reach" was no respecter of rank and wealth and was even going to require five demolitions along prestigious Mugga Way.