The ever-shapely Canberra Times

This Saturday the ever-shapely Canberra Times goes from being broad (and a little unwieldy) to being exquisitely compact. When a similar change of shape happened on June 11 1956 this paper's management felt the need to assure readers it wasn't going to mean the paper's "debasement". Proprietors promised (surely to the disappointment of some primitive Canberrans) our pages were not going to be "littered with beach girls".

Today as we change yet again there is no need for these reassurances. Whereas in 1956 compact or "tabloid" newspapers were thought mostly for the simple-minded, for oglers of pictures of "beach girls", today most of the world's great and wholesome newspapers have adopted the manageable, easier-to-read size The Canberra Times assumes on Saturday. And to be precise we resume a compact shape because the paper was this dainty shape from 1956 to 1964.

What we are doing here is now so commonplace (for example The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age of Melbourne have been compact for some time) that we are not making too big a thing of it.

But in June 1956 and because the change was being brought about by a dashing new, space-age printing press (a proof of the paper's agile adaptation to modern times) the Times did make quite a big thing of it.

The front page of the first compact edition boasted a picture of this wondrous "Duplex Tubular four-unit 32-page rotary printing press". Inside on page five its technological praises were sung and a photo showed its dazzling array of gleaming cogwheels. A caption boasted that this marvel was "powered by a 60 horse power ... motor".

In this edition businesses took out big advertisements that opened with congratulations to the Times on its embrace of modernity. Charles Rogers and Sons (purveyors of radiograms) thought "A virile Capital City calls for a virile, active Press" and that with its new contraption Federal Capital Press was demonstrating that pulsating virility.

Elsewhere in this edition (16 pages, price threepence) major news of that day included reports of virile weather (downpours had made a torrent of the Molonglo). An ad for the Civic Theatre cinema promised virile heart-throb Robert Taylor starring opposite the mysterious Greta Garbo in MGM's Camille.

But the most remarkable item in this edition was an editorial, in part a finger-wagging lecture from an anonymous proprietor (almost certainly A.T. Shakespeare). His page two editorial announced the paper's new shape but also told readers themselves to shape up. One can't imagine a Shakespearean lecture like this today, all newspapers anxious to butter-up every scarce, precious-as-gold reader.

"This morning The Canberra Times is presented to readers in a new page format. The change conforms to the modern taste for smaller pages ...

"There has been a natural tendency for readers to assume that the tabloid newspaper is synonymous with the debasement of newspaper standards which are frequently under criticism.

"The change in the format of The Canberra Times is intended to provide modern dress, but editorial standards and policy will not be influenced by these technical considerations.

"[But] often one hears the suggestion that journalists have lowered their standards ... The unfortunate fact is that newspapers present what is happening in the world. If editors could write the news as they would like the world to be, this world would [look and sound] a far better place, but they record what other people say and do.

"We do not hold a brief for all that appears in what is called the 'popular press', but at least we can explain it. The people responsible for any apparent lowering of newspaper standards are the readers who prefer what they call 'popular newspapers' to those which attempt to set standards above the average. [Disapproving] readers should be reminded that the newspaper is the looking-glass of society, and if our society and civilisation is getting a dirty face, that will be reflected in the faithful recording of events and sayings of the day.

"Those newspapers whose pages are littered with beach girls [do this] because their readers show a preference for them. We do not believe that the looking glass must necessarily be smeared like the faces that are reflected ... but everyday events [must be] recorded ... "

The Times' next Alice-like change of shape, bulking back up from compact to broadsheet, was introduced with the edition of July 1 1964.

Routine news of that day included alarmingly rocketing land prices (blocks at Hackett and Hughes had just sold for an average of £873) and furore over the censors' banning of Nabokov's lubricious novel Lolita. There was a "Women's Page". Advertisements promised that at the Starlight Drive-In the next popular "Ranch Night" was to be MGM's Broken Lance, starring those legendary chap-wearing chaps Spencer Tracy and Richard Widmark.

Other news included proprietor A.T. Shakespeare's front page announcement that "Today, The Canberra Times appears in a new shape and new size. Our readers will want to know why this is necessary and whether it foreshadows other, and more fundamental, changes ..."

"The Canberra Times will remain the same independent, responsible and wholesome newspaper that it has always been ... avoiding sensation and scandal ... There will, therefore, be no change in its character.

"It would, however, be very odd if, in a city which is changing and growing faster than any other in Australia, The Canberra Times alone should remain exactly the same. In fact any newspaper must move with the course of human affairs if it is to survive ..."

"But big or small, tabloid or broadsheet, The Canberra Times will continue to serve the capital city as honestly and faithfully as it has done in its first 38 years. A.T. Shakespeare, Chairman."

Virile, but wholesome, and like Alice honest and faithful and independent-minded, today The Canberra Times changes shape yet again.