Gracewood Retirement Village 2017
I spent the first part of my working life as a chartered accountant, and people often ask how I went from accounting to journalism. Forty-four years ago I decided to take a break from my career as a chartered accountant, spend a year doing something interesting and then resume my accounting career. I spent the time doing the first year of what’s now the BA (Communications) at what’s now UTS. During that year I became the inaugural co-editor of the student newspaper at UTS, then called Newswit. As the year came to an end my journalism lecturer, Terry Mohan, asked me if I’d thought about making a career in journalism rather than accounting. I hadn’t, but on his prompting, I did. I applied to the ABC and the Fin Review and got nowhere, but Terry said he knew the cadet counsellor at the Herald and would get me an interview. It’s obvious to me now that he also put in a good word for me. I got the job and, at what was then considered to be the terribly mature age of 26, as a qualified chartered accountant, I started as a graduate cadet on a fraction of my former salary.
That was in 1974, the year following the first OPEC oil shock which ended the post-war Golden Age, the year our economy fell apart under the Whitlam government and the year newspapers discovered that politics was mainly about economics and decided they’d better start finding people who could write about economics. I was an accountant, not an economist, but the Herald decided that was near enough. I had a fair bit of economics in my commerce degree, of course. I soon realised the Herald was making quite extensive use of my professional qualifications, so I suggested it start paying me more appropriately and after about four months my cadetship was cut short and I was made a graded journalist. After less than a year I was sent to Canberra as the Herald’s economics correspondent. After a bit over a year I was brought back to Sydney as economics writer, replacing my mentor, Alan Wood, who had resigned as economics editor. About two years later - that is, about four years after I’d joined the Herald - I was promoted to economics editor. That was 39 years ago and I’ve been economics editor ever since.
Journalistic careers today aren’t as meteoric as mine was then. I just had the immense good fortune to be in the right place at the right time. But think of it another way: I’ve been doing almost exactly the same job for the best part of 40 years. I haven’t gone anywhere, haven’t had a promotion in 39 years. My one ambition in journalism was to be the Herald’s economics editor; I achieved that ambition in four years - far sooner than I ever imagined I would - and in all the time since I haven’t been able to think of any job I wanted to do more or any paper I wanted to work for more than what I had. The one big advance I’ve had in that time was when, a long time ago, The Age started running my columns. In terms of combined circulation and quality, newspapers can’t offer any bigger or better platform that the Herald plus The Age.
WRITING TIPS
Use the right words
Strength in writing comes from the strength of the nouns and particularly the verbs you use. Excessive use of adjectives and adverbs is a sign of weak writing.
Narrow the gap between words you know, and words you use commonly. That is, wherever possible use a more interesting, less common word, as long as the reader will understand it easily.
Don’t try to impress people with big words and long sentences.
Short words with non-Latin origins are preferable, where possible. For example, don’t say ‘employment’ when you can say ‘jobs’.
Elegant variation: to avoid repetition, use synonyms when referring to something frequently.
Avoid jargon: don’t say ‘equities’ when you can say ‘share market’; don’t say ‘fresh data’ when you can say ‘new figures’.
Write as much as possible in the active voice, not the passive voice. A did B. Not, B was done by A.
Grab the reader’s attention with the first sentence and paragraph. Keep the sentence short, clear, and focused on the part of the story likely to interest readers.
Write for the reader
Explain concepts that are not immediately obvious. For example: ‘The dollar spiked yesterday’ should be followed by details that show the reader what ‘spiked’ means in this context.
Write about events from your reader’s point of view. For example: ‘The dollar’ is always the Australian dollar; foreign dollars need to be labeled as such.
Signal changes of direction clearly to readers. For example: If you say, ‘on the one hand’, you have to follow it up with ‘on the other...’
Write in a way that will be most easily understood: Don't say April if you can say ‘last month’.
Explanation:
A big part of the journalist’s job is to translate complex events into a simpler form, make coherence out chaos.
Be wary of the curse of knowledge. Don’t assume that because you know it, everyone else does.
What to explain? If it is not common knowledge, it should be explained to the reader. If the reader has probably forgotten it, it’s new and should be included.
When explaining a concept, use a concrete example that readers will understand wherever possible. For example: When referring to rural jobs, throw in an example, such as fruit-picker.
Be as clear as possible
Aim to write so clearly that people never have to read your sentences twice – you only have one shot to get your meaning across.
Write how you speak. For example, don’t say ‘said Ms Jones’ when you can say ‘Ms Jones said.’
Cut out the pompous and unnecessary language that often clutters economists' statements.
Don't sacrifice clarity for the sake of brevity. Unpack phrases that are not intuitive to readers. For example, 'the supply of money' is more meaningful than 'money supply'; don’t say ‘rate cut’ instead of ‘interest rate cut’.
Avoid words derived from Latin: don't say ‘per week’ instead of ‘a week’.
Other points
I don’t just assert my opinion, I try to argue a case, quoting lots of facts and acknowledging both sides of the argument (eg It’s true that X, but Y). Sometimes your role is to remind the reader of why they disagree with you. That’s fine by me. But no matter how judicious you are, you must, as a matter of artistry, come to a conclusion and state an opinion. Only during an election campaign would I limit myself to on the one hand, but on the other.
You have to combine information with entertainment. Well written and an easy, enjoyable read. An informal, chatty style goes down well. Should inject some of your own personality.
Predictability is the great enemy of all columnists. Try to avoid having obvious, run-of-the-mill opinions on a particular subject. That doesn’t mean always having a contrarian view, tho if you view happens to be opposite to everyone else, that’s a plus. No, you have to have a more thoughtful, better-informed and thus novel view, which you achieve by giving the subject more thought and research than the reader has.
But you also need to avoid being too predictable over time. ‘I stopped reading Paddy because I always knew what he was going to say about any subject’ is the kiss of death for a columnist. Good to have views that are complex - that acknowledge differing shades of grey - and that evolve over time as you learn more from your experience but also your reading.
Criticise from a fixed viewpoint - a fixed model or view of the way the world works or should work - don’t keep changing your vantage point until you’ve got something to criticise. That’s the mark of an amateur.
I sometimes write what you might call primativist columns (like primitive art) - columns intended to connect with the unsophisticated view ordinary readers might adopt towards some development and move them forward, not columns that simply contribute to a debate being conducted at the sophisticated level by my expert contacts. That is, I act as a populariser and a bridge between punter and expert.
Readers are more interested in stories about people than about ideas. And they like stories to be stories.
