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https://theconversation.com/fair-minded-down-to-earth-and-unusually-gifted-george-negus-dies-at-82-241367>
"George Negus, who has died at the age of 82, belonged to the nomenclatura of
Australian television current affairs journalism.
He first came to prominence as a member of the team that produced the
groundbreaking nightly ABC TV current affairs program,
This Day Tonight. That
team was made up of others who were also to become household names: presenter
Bill Peach and reporters Peter Luck, Gerald Stone and Mike Willesee.
The program became a burr under the saddle of senior ABC management. On its
second day it broke the story that the then chair of the ABC, James Darling,
was not to be given a third term. The story incurred the chairman’s
displeasure. The fallout went on interminably, a rehearsal for many tumults
that were to follow throughout
TDT’s 11-year existence.
This kind of fearless, sometimes irreverent, public-interest journalism was
meat and drink to Negus. He practised it from both sides of the chasm that
traditionally separates journalists from political staffers.
During the term of the Whitlam government, he became press secretary to the
attorney-general, Lionel Murphy. He leaked to the media Murphy’s plan to raid
the headquarters of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) in
1973 because Murphy believed the agency was withholding from him information
about domestic terrorism.
However, it was as a television journalist that Negus made his name. In 1979 he
joined the founding team of the Nine Network’s
60 Minutes program, alongside
Ray Martin, Ian Leslie and, later, Jana Wendt.
In 1992 he became the founding host of ABC TV’s
Foreign Correspondent program
and worked there until 1999. He developed a reputation as a well-informed and
courageous reporter specialising in the Middle East. In 2004, he published a
bestselling book,
The World from Islam: A Journey of Discovery through the
Muslim Heartland, in which he defended Islam against the stereotype that it
was inherently violent."
RIP,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
