Some people have asked for more information about the guest writers coming to the Gloucester Writers Festival, to be held April 28 to May 1 at the Recreation Centre.

Lindy Dupree, Festival Director, said “Our website http://www.gloucesterwritersfestival.com has information about each and every one of our writers coming to Gloucester. Many of them have their own web pages which people can find easily by doing an internet search. Many of them are award winning writers and only this week we have found out that Ross Fitzgerald’s book ‘The Red Fox’ Reid: Pressman Par Excellence has been shortlisted for the 2011 National Biography Award.”

“We are fortunate to have so many award winning authors in our program,” Lindy said.

The Gloucester Advocate, April 20, 2011

The shortlisted titles are:

Alan ‘The Red Fox’ Reid: Pressman Par Excellence (Ross Fitzgerald & Stephen Holt, UNSW Press).

IT is nice that faceless men are back in vogue. So many years have gone down the S-bend of time since journalist Alan “The Red Fox” Reid’s scoop about Gough Whitlam and the reign of the ALP’s faceless men, it was overdue for a return to fashionable use. But as Ross Fitzgerald, Reid’s co-biographer and our adviser on all matters sans visage, tells us it wasn’t Reid who coined it: “The phrase was first publicly used on April 3, 1963, by federal Liberal MP for Bradfield Harry Turner. In many ways Harry was too genteel for politics [not the only time this has happened with a member for Bradfield] but he enriched Oz political language forever when he denounced the 36 faceless men of the ALP conference.”

The Australian 10 Nov 2010 page 13 – James Jeffrey – Strewth column

IT is nice that faceless men are back in vogue. So many years have gone down the S-bend of time since journalist Alan “The Red Fox” Reid’s scoop about Gough Whitlam and the reign of the ALP’s faceless men, it was overdue for a return to fashionable use. But as Ross Fitzgerald, Reid’s co-biographer and our adviser on all matters sans visage, tells us it wasn’t Reid who coined it: “The phrase was first publicly used on April 3, 1963, by federal Liberal MP for Bradfield Harry Turner. In many ways Harry was too genteel for politics [not the only time this has happened with a member for Bradfield] but he enriched Oz political language forever when he denounced the 36 faceless men of the ALP conference.”

The Australian 10 Nov 2010 page 13 – James Jeffrey – strewth column

Highly respected Tasmanian journalist WAYNE CRAWFORD examines the lives of two true legends of his profession

IT is rare for the description “legend” to be associated (accurately) with journalists.

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Many of us may imagine ourselves to have been influential — if not on events, then at least on the recording of history’s first draft.

But legend status is reserved for the few whose work has truly contributed to shaping events in public life.

Recent biographies have chronicled the lives and times of two true legends of Australian journalism, Graham Perkin and Alan Reid.

The names probably mean little to today’s generation, even of journalists. Perkin has been dead for nearly 35 years; Reid died in 1987 (also a generation ago).

The reasons for their status as legends of the profession are entirely contrary.

Perkin has been lionised by many — particularly those who worked with him — as Australia’s greatest newspaper editor. Greatest or not, he certainly set the gold standard to which serious journalists aspire.

Reid, on the other hand, while considered by some veterans (including The Australian’s Paul Kelly) as “the finest newsbreaker the [Canberra Press] Gallery has ever produced” — had a dark side.

He was as much — and at times far more — a participant in the political machinations about which he wrote, as he was an observer and recorder of the news.

The 500-page tribute to the late former editor of The Age, Melbourne’s morning broadsheet — Breaking News: The golden age of Graham Perkin — has been written by Ben Hills, who worked at the Mercury for a few years in the late 1960s before being poached by Perkin to help launch the formerly staid, stagnant, conservative newspaper into investigative journalism and interventionist campaigning. Hills, one of Australia’s best investigative reporters, will still be remembered by some in Hobart for his fearless and forthright pursuit of stories and his willingness to ask questions that were too embarrassing or intimidating for his colleagues. That was exactly why Perkin wanted him for what became The Age’s Insight team, which exposed financial scandals, corruption in high places and injustices to the marginalised. Perkin appointed an environment reporter and took up environmental issues before it had become fashionable. He famously ran a campaign of opposition to Victorian premier Henry Bolte’s determination to hang Ronald Ryan, the last person executed in Australia.

Bolte was among a long list of those in power who were not used to, and did not take kindly to, having their authority challenged. But Perkin did not take a backward step. He confronted critics boldly and stared them down, despite the intimidation of $80 million to $90 million in writs for defamation which, had they succeeded, would have bankrupted The Age.

Neither did he play favourites when it came to publishing what he believed his readers had the right to know. Having controversially advocated a vote for Labor in 1972, it was The Age that broke the Khemlani Loans Affair scandal, which led to Gough Whitlam’s sacking and defeat in 1975. Three years after having urged readers to vote for Whitlam, Perkin personally penned an editorial urging the Labor government to “Go now, go decently.”

In an era when the profession was dominated by men, Perkin hired female journalists, including the enduring Michelle Grattan, who is now doyenne of the Canberra Press Gallery, and Jennifer Byrne, who went on to a stellar career in television.

It was also an era when journalists were permitted — nae, expected — to exhibit a culture of what Hills describes as “ larrikin irreverence and disrespect for authority and the rules” — a culture alien in today’s human resources-controlled world.

Perkin was an enthusiast for good journalism and for his newspaper and tragically worked himself into an early grave in 1975 after a heart attack at age 45.

Alan Reid achieved legend status for far different reasons than Perkin. As a political player, rather than merely a reporter of events, it is said he was more powerful than some ministers.

In his foreword to Alan “The Red Fox” Reid — Pressman Par Excellence, today’s best story-breaker in Canberra, Laurie Oakes, writes that “Reid combined the best and some of the worst aspects of political journalism”.

As Oakes writes, it is very difficult to report politics without getting involved to a degree, “but to some of his peers Reid seemed almost as much a political player as a journalist”.

He served as an unofficial strategic adviser and numbers man to politicians of both stripes. He advised prime minister Robert Menzies on a strategy to win the 1961 election, was central in the Labor Party split in the mid-1950s, and he campaigned to get rid of John Gorton as prime minister in 1971 and have him replaced by Bill McMahon, who was supported by Reid’s employers, the Packers.

Indeed, for much of his career in journalism Reid was also a paid-up member of the ALP — something which created tensions both with his employer and the Labor Party, given that he was working for the strongly anti-Labor Sydney Daily Telegraph, then owned by Sir Frank Packer.

He joined the Canberra gallery as a raw if enthusiastic and talented probationer in 1937 when Joe Lyons was prime minister.

At his deathbed half a century later in 1987 he was visited by Labor’s longest-serving prime minister Bob Hawke, whom he greeted with a cheery “G’day comrade.” Three days later he died. Constantly prowling the corridors of power the Red Fox (the nickname he gained because of his red hair and cunning) had covered 20 federal elections.

Though his background and roots were Labor — he was especially close to prime ministers John Curtin and Ben Chifley — he changed sides after the Labor split in the 1950s.

He crafted his coverage to suit his boss in the Packer camp.

Nonetheless, Reid’s contacts across the political spectrum were unparalleled, and he broke some of the biggest political stories of the era.

He exposed the manoeuvrings of B.A. Santamaria, which led to the Labor split of 1955 that kept Labor out of power for 17 years.

In 1963 the Australian political lexicon gave birth to the Infamous “36 faceless men” of the Labor Party when Reid arranged for a photo to be taken of Labor leader Arthur Calwell and his deputy Gough Whitlam skulking under a street lamp late at night while waiting for their instructions on a major policy issue which was made in a closed conference by 36 machine men of the party, most of them unknown to the electorate.

Unquestionably Reid was a giant of political reporting whose contribution may never be equalled.

The tragedy is that this ultimate Canberra insider did not match his talent as a reporter with independent and unbiased commentary.

Hobart Mercury, 7 August 2010

Brisbane News 14 July 2010

The man behind the faceless men
ALAN “THE RED FOX” REID: PRESSMAN PAR EXCELLENCE
BY ROSS FITZGERALD AND STEPHEN HOLT
UNSW PRESS, RRP $49.95
Australian national politics often seems to be a blood sport. A celebrated example is the recent championship bout between K. Rudd and J. Gillard. It started around dinnertime one Wednesday and was over bar the shouting a few hours later.
For anyone interested in why we like our politics that way, this biography of the legendary political correspondent Alan Reid is worth a look.
Reid, born in Liverpool, was a nimble reporter who made a name for himself in the competitive Sydney newspaper world after the Depression.
In Canberra he made an art form of targeting everyone from Robert Menzies to Labor messiah Gough Whitlam.
Reid was best known for a scoop that led to the coining of the phrase “faceless men” to describe the ALP’s powerful factional leaders.
At one stage Alan Reid was probably the most feared journalist in the Packer empire.
Fitzgerald and Holt, both historians, have written a punchy, well-documented account of an influential career. Laurie Oakes’ brilliant foreword is a bonus.
Verdict: newsworthy

Russell Robinson, Herald Sun (Melbourne) Saturday July 24, 2010, Weekend BOOKS p 15

ONE image that stands out in this book is a helicopter descending on the lawn of the nursing home where Alan Reid was dying in 1987: from it emerged the prime minister, Bob Hawke, who had come to pay his respects.

Even in extremis Reid liked to have a chat with the powerful, and in his heyday, from the 1950s to the ’70s, his nose for a story and ability to winkle out intrigue were without compare.

He was the man who brought Bob Santamaria out from anonymity and organised the famous photographs of Arthur Calwell and Gough Whitlam talking to Labor caucus members outside a Canberra hotel, the image that inspired Menzies’ famous and seemingly indelible gibe about the “faceless men” of the party; he played more than a merely reportorial role in the ouster of John Gorton.

“A competent but somewhat venal purveyor of political gossip,” he was loftily called by Paul Hasluck, whom Reid had claimed to know better than he did; Whitlam also hated him, and took him to court. But mostly he was liked and respected: as has been pointed out in the most recent issue of Overland, his influence can still be seen in the work of the Australian journalist and author, Paul Kelly, who also prides himself on his insider status and whose writing, like Reid’s, emphasises the personal dramas of politics.

The Age 17/07/2010

Reviewed for The Walkley by David Salter

“Go for your life, sport.” That was my curt introduction to Alan Reid, the doyen of the Canberra press gallery. As a green young hack in the mid-1960s I’d tip-toed into the Daily Telegraph office in old Parliament House wanting to cadge some telex time to file my copy to Sydney. Reid was perched in his usual corner like a vulture in a rumpled suit, a roll-your-own durrie in his nicotine-stained fingers. It was a Saturday afternoon. All the politicians were back in their electorates, but The Red Fox was still hanging around, just in case. Either that, or he couldn’t stay away.

Reid was already a legend of Australian political reporting. In the 1950s he’d been the first to expose the activities of B.A.Santamaria and his ‘groupers’. In the 60s it was his ‘36 faceless men’ scoop that helped keep Menzies in power but also eventually allowed Whitlam to break the unions’ grip on parliamentary Labor. When I returned to Canberra a decade after my first meeting with Reid (to work for the ABC), he still commanded his favourite lookout spot in King’s Hall, and the same desk in the Telegraph office. More than any other gallery journalist, The Fox embodied both the history and standpoint of political reporting in Australia.

Ross Fitzgerald and Stephen Holt have now written an admirable account of Reid’s journalistic career. He was a notoriously private man who – perhaps wisely – culled many of his personal papers in retirement. But while the domestic details of his life are scant, this survey of his 50-year innings reporting federal politics is impressive. The book uses the great events of national affairs from 1930 to 1985 as its chronological framework, with Reid’s involvement as a reporter the constant sub-plot. What’s remarkable to learn is how often this esteemed journalist was prepared to sprint ahead of history’s footprint in an attempt to change its course.

Reid, like so many gallery tragics, was fascinated by power, not policy. (It’s no surprise that he named the alter-ego character in his unpublished novel about politics “Macker Kalley” – Machiavelli.) Almost everything he wrote, or later said on TV programs such as Meet the Press and Federal File, was concerned with leadership, threats to leadership and winning or losing elections. From the earliest days of his Canberra career with The Sun (1937-53), plots and conspiracies – indeed any form of conflict or melodrama – were his perennial themes. He was a tabloid man, through-and-through. Policy development and the legislative work of government rarely interested him, even as a commentator for The Bulletin in the last few years of his working life. For Reid, politics boiled down to who held power and who wanted to grab it from them – the rest was inconsequential fluff.

But despite his legendary status, he didn’t always get it right. Three times he was on the wrong side of major defamation actions prompted by damaging stories he could not substantiate sufficiently. At least twice he attracted the attention of the House Privileges Committee for breaches of parliamentary convention or confidence. And his habit of sometimes drawing an exceptionally long bow on the basis of unsourced quotes or information – and then splashing that speculation across the Telegraph front page – earned him a reputation for poisonous cunning. Paul Hasluck dismissed Reid as “a competent though somewhat venal purveyor of political gossip”, while Arthur Calwell called him “the lowest thing to crawl around this House”. (Reid was a good hater: he castigated Calwell at every opportunity for the next 20 years.)

At the centre of this book (although not specifically explored in any depth) is the most contentious issue of national affairs journalism: to what extent – if at all – should we tolerate the intrusion of a gallery correspondent’s personal views, or the interests of their proprietors?

Reid, almost every time he sat down at his typewriter, crossed what today would be recognised as the threshold where opinion begins to seep into straight political reporting. Fitzgerald and Holt document scores of occasions on which he not only wrote from a plainly biased standpoint, but actively inserted himself into events with the avowed intention of influencing their outcome.

So addicted was Reid to the processes of political power that for more than 40 years he acted as much as a participant, go-between and adviser – often even conspirator – as he did as a reporter. Yet despite his staunch and lifelong membership of the Australian Journalists’ Association it appears he never recognised the ethical obligation of disclosure in these situations. It was as if he believed the men’s club of Parliament House conferred on him a cloak of mutually-agreed invisibility.

Worse, at least to my mind, were the frequent occasions on which Reid took, and carried out, direct instructions from his Daily Telegraph proprietor, Frank Packer. These went well beyond the customary subtle indications from Head Office as to which policies or politicians might be favoured in tomorrow’s news report or column. Packer expected his man in Canberra to toe the company line unquestioningly, and often to take an active role in precipitating events (for instance, the undermining of Gorton’s prime ministership and ludicrous championing of Billy McMahon in his place).

The patient historical research of Fitzgerald and Holt confirms what any half-aware journalist of his period already knew: Reid pushed plenty of private agendas, but in the end he always did what he was told by Park Street. It’s disheartening that a man whose lifelong socialist sympathies were formed during the Depression (and often called his mates “comrade”) could have so comprehensively sold his soul to one of the most unprincipled buccaneers in Australian media history. As Laurie Oakes remarks in his judicious Foreword to this book, Reid “combined the best and some of the worst aspects of political journalism”.

David Salter has been an independent print and television journalist for more than 40 years. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of THE WEEK magazine.

Reid’s life as lapdog and attack dog for press barons has been detailed in Ross Fitzgerald’s and Stephen Holt’s biography, The Red Fox. Reid’s tobacco-stained fingerprints could be found all over a story written by Rupert Murdoch himself about the Labor Party’s attempt to secure $800,000 from pre-Saddam Hussein’s Baathist government to cover costs of the 1975 general election. History is not replete with ironic events but history is irony.

What Reid would have made of the coup against Rudd that has led to another coup, one could hazard a guess. Reid railed against the permissiveness of the Whitlam government which favoured an “articulate avant-garde”, the West Australian Labor Party for, “concentrating almost exclusively on the problems of homosexuality, prostitution, pot-smoking or the like” and exposed the Victorian ALP’s Status of Women Policy Committee as declaring, “In many instances marriage is also a form of prostitution, only the pay is a lot poorer.”

On hearing of Gillard’s ascension, Reid would turn over in his grave, although he was interred into an urn at Sydney’s Northern Suburbs Crematorium and later spread across the Snowy Mountains at Currango.

The Prime Minister is an atheist, unmarried in a de facto relationship with a former hairdresser, childless, and a woman. God, therefore, is not in her House.

The Sun-Herald, July 4, 2010