Margaret Jones (journalist)
Encyclopedia
Margaret Mary Jones was an Australian journalist, noted for being one of the first accredited to China after the Cultural Revolution, and first female Foreign Editor on any Australian newspaper. Described as a 'trailblazer for women journalists', she wrote for John Fairfax Limited
for a total of thirty-three years http://womenaustralia.info/exhib/cal/jones.html.
Margaret was born in Rockhampton, Queensland the youngest of six children of John Jones, an employee of the Rockhampton Harbour Board for around 40 years. After a Catholic education in Rockhampton, she commenced teacher training in Brisbane
, but abandoned it for life as a cadet journalist. There is an anecdote about her having a youthful article accepted by the Times of London.
as a stringer
then regional correspondent from 1948–53 during employment as a journalist on the Mackay Mercury
, then moved to Sydney to work for the Daily Mirror
She joined the Sydney Sun-Herald in 1954. Famously, her job application read in part "As you may see by my signature, I am a woman and I know that, even yet, a certain amount of prejudice still exists against women in journalism". Her first assignments were book and theatre reviews and a column "Dog of the Week".
She resigned in 1956 to work in England and Paris then rejoined the Sun-Herald in 1961 http://womenaustralia.info/exhib/cal/jones.html
She was posted to New York in 1965 as foreign correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald, the more serious broadsheet
sister of the tabloid Sun-Herald to share offices with the rock music journalist Lillian Roxon
. Their relationship, noted Robert Milliken in his autobiography, was "like two sopranos sharing the same stage". Perhaps to keep these two apart, she was posted to Washington in 1966, the SMH's first correspondent there, by editor John Pringle. There she was to experience overt professional sex discrimination from the National Press Club
which did not admit woman members, effectively barring her from important presentations. Nevertheless, she made the most of her opportunities, reporting on President Lyndon B. Johnson
and the escalation of the Vietnam War
and the 1967 Glassboro Summit Conference
between Johnson and Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin.
She was next posted to London in 1969, reporting on subjects as varied as the IRA
and The Beatles
. Returning to Australia in 1972 to become Literary Editor, she fought, successfully, to allow women full membership of the Sydney Journalists Club.
With the Whitlam government's normalisation of relations with China in, the foreign editor, Stephen Claypole, had her open a bureau for John Fairfax Ltd.
in Peking (now Beijing
), China in 1973 despite her having no knowledge of Mandarin. Journalists then were prohibited from talking to ordinary Chinese and had to rely on the official newsagency and the Communist Party controlled newspapers Renmin Ribao and Kwangming Ribao. She was the first SMH journalist to be stationed there since WWII, and only . She travelled extensively, to North Korea and from Yunan (now Yunnan Province) to Manchuria and Inner Mongolia. For six months, Western journalists suffered official restrictions in reaction to release of Chung Kuo
, Michelangelo Antonioni
's documentary on China.
She returned to Australia to take up an appointment as Literary Editor but regretted not being in China to witness the death of Mao, the rise and fall of the Gang of Four and the end of the Cultural Revolution. In 1976, she was invited by the Sydney Journalists' Club and the New South Wales branch of the Australian Journalists' Association to give the Paton-Wilkie-Deamer Newspaper Address, the first woman journalist to be so honoured.
In 1980, the early days of the Thatcher
regime, she returned to London as European Correspondent. She was later to publish an account of that time, Thatcher's Kingdom. On revisiting China in 1986, she noted the opening up of the country to tourists, and the greater ability to meet ordinary Chinese.
She retired in 1987 and served on the Australian Press Council 1988–98, then was appointed in 1991 to the Independent Complaints Review Panel set up by John Howard
to hear complaints about the ABC.
Among her other interests were membership (and a stint as Vice-President) of Sydney PEN
, where she was chair of the Writers in Prison Committee. She was an active member of the Australian Republican Movement
, the Sydney Institute
, the Mitchell Library's Library Society and the D H Lawrence Society, where she was secretary and frequent contributor to their magazine Rananim.
She died in Bondi, New South Wales
and was privately cremated, followed a week later by a wake for her friends and colleagues. She had no surviving close relatives apart from one niece.
She left a substantial part of her estate to the Mitchell Library
and to the Art Gallery of NSW.
).
Fairfax Media
Fairfax Media Limited is one of Australia's largest diversified media companies. The group's operations include newspapers, magazines, radios and digital media operating in Australia and New Zealand. Fairfax Media was founded by the Fairfax family as John Fairfax and Sons, later to become John...
for a total of thirty-three years http://womenaustralia.info/exhib/cal/jones.html.
Margaret was born in Rockhampton, Queensland the youngest of six children of John Jones, an employee of the Rockhampton Harbour Board for around 40 years. After a Catholic education in Rockhampton, she commenced teacher training in Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
, but abandoned it for life as a cadet journalist. There is an anecdote about her having a youthful article accepted by the Times of London.
Career
She worked for the Australian Broadcasting CommissionAustralian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
as a stringer
Stringer (journalism)
In journalism, a stringer is a type of freelance journalist or photographer who contributes reports or photos to a news organization on an ongoing basis but is paid individually for each piece of published or broadcast work....
then regional correspondent from 1948–53 during employment as a journalist on the Mackay Mercury
The Daily Mercury
The Daily Mercury is the only daily newspaper serving the Mackay region in Queensland, Australia and is published Monday to Saturday. The newspaper is printed by Mackay Printing and Publishing, part of APN News & Media...
, then moved to Sydney to work for the Daily Mirror
She joined the Sydney Sun-Herald in 1954. Famously, her job application read in part "As you may see by my signature, I am a woman and I know that, even yet, a certain amount of prejudice still exists against women in journalism". Her first assignments were book and theatre reviews and a column "Dog of the Week".
She resigned in 1956 to work in England and Paris then rejoined the Sun-Herald in 1961 http://womenaustralia.info/exhib/cal/jones.html
She was posted to New York in 1965 as foreign correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald, the more serious broadsheet
Broadsheet
Broadsheet is the largest of the various newspaper formats and is characterized by long vertical pages . The term derives from types of popular prints usually just of a single sheet, sold on the streets and containing various types of material, from ballads to political satire. The first broadsheet...
sister of the tabloid Sun-Herald to share offices with the rock music journalist Lillian Roxon
Lillian Roxon
Lillian Roxon was a noted Australian journalist and author, best known for Lillian Roxon's Rock Encyclopedia . Her niece Nicola Roxon, the Australian politician, is currently the federal Minister for Health....
. Their relationship, noted Robert Milliken in his autobiography, was "like two sopranos sharing the same stage". Perhaps to keep these two apart, she was posted to Washington in 1966, the SMH's first correspondent there, by editor John Pringle. There she was to experience overt professional sex discrimination from the National Press Club
National Press Club
The National Press Club is a professional organization and private social club for journalists. It is located in Washington, D.C. Its membership consists of journalists, former journalists, government information officers, and those considered to be regular news sources. It is well-known for its...
which did not admit woman members, effectively barring her from important presentations. Nevertheless, she made the most of her opportunities, reporting on President Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
and the escalation of the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
and the 1967 Glassboro Summit Conference
Glassboro Summit Conference
The Glassboro Summit Conference, usually just called the Glassboro Summit, was the 23–25 June 1967 meeting of the heads of government of the United States and the Soviet Union—President Lyndon B. Johnson and Premier Alexei Kosygin, respectively—for the purpose of discussing Soviet–US relations...
between Johnson and Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin.
She was next posted to London in 1969, reporting on subjects as varied as the IRA
Irish Republican Army
The Irish Republican Army was an Irish republican revolutionary military organisation. It was descended from the Irish Volunteers, an organisation established on 25 November 1913 that staged the Easter Rising in April 1916...
and The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
. Returning to Australia in 1972 to become Literary Editor, she fought, successfully, to allow women full membership of the Sydney Journalists Club.
With the Whitlam government's normalisation of relations with China in, the foreign editor, Stephen Claypole, had her open a bureau for John Fairfax Ltd.
Fairfax Media
Fairfax Media Limited is one of Australia's largest diversified media companies. The group's operations include newspapers, magazines, radios and digital media operating in Australia and New Zealand. Fairfax Media was founded by the Fairfax family as John Fairfax and Sons, later to become John...
in Peking (now Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
), China in 1973 despite her having no knowledge of Mandarin. Journalists then were prohibited from talking to ordinary Chinese and had to rely on the official newsagency and the Communist Party controlled newspapers Renmin Ribao and Kwangming Ribao. She was the first SMH journalist to be stationed there since WWII, and only . She travelled extensively, to North Korea and from Yunan (now Yunnan Province) to Manchuria and Inner Mongolia. For six months, Western journalists suffered official restrictions in reaction to release of Chung Kuo
Chung Kuo, Cina
Chung Kuo, Cina is an Italian Documentary directed by Michelangelo Antonioni in 1972. It focuses primarily on the lives of working class Han Chinese during this time period.-Plot:...
, Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian modernist film director, screenwriter, editor and short story writer.- Personal life :...
's documentary on China.
She returned to Australia to take up an appointment as Literary Editor but regretted not being in China to witness the death of Mao, the rise and fall of the Gang of Four and the end of the Cultural Revolution. In 1976, she was invited by the Sydney Journalists' Club and the New South Wales branch of the Australian Journalists' Association to give the Paton-Wilkie-Deamer Newspaper Address, the first woman journalist to be so honoured.
In 1980, the early days of the Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
regime, she returned to London as European Correspondent. She was later to publish an account of that time, Thatcher's Kingdom. On revisiting China in 1986, she noted the opening up of the country to tourists, and the greater ability to meet ordinary Chinese.
She retired in 1987 and served on the Australian Press Council 1988–98, then was appointed in 1991 to the Independent Complaints Review Panel set up by John Howard
John Howard
John Winston Howard AC, SSI, was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. He was the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies....
to hear complaints about the ABC.
Among her other interests were membership (and a stint as Vice-President) of Sydney PEN
International PEN
PEN International , the worldwide association of writers, was founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere....
, where she was chair of the Writers in Prison Committee. She was an active member of the Australian Republican Movement
Australian Republican Movement
The Australian Republican Movement is a non-partisan lobby group advocating constitutional change in Australia to a republican form of government, from a constitutional monarchy.-Foundation:...
, the Sydney Institute
Sydney Institute
The Sydney Institute, founded in 1989, is a privately funded, conservative, Australian current affairs forum. The Sydney Institute took over the resources of the Sydney Institute of Public Affairs which ceased activity in the late 1980s...
, the Mitchell Library's Library Society and the D H Lawrence Society, where she was secretary and frequent contributor to their magazine Rananim.
She died in Bondi, New South Wales
Bondi, New South Wales
Bondi is an eastern suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Bondi is located seven kilometres east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of Waverley Council. The postcode is 2026.-Location:...
and was privately cremated, followed a week later by a wake for her friends and colleagues. She had no surviving close relatives apart from one niece.
Legacy
Her professionalism and refusal to be sidelined did much to overcome prejudice against female journalists, and the current improvement in gender balance can in some way be attributed to her.She left a substantial part of her estate to the Mitchell Library
Mitchell Library
The Mitchell Library is a large public library and centre of the public library system of Glasgow, Scotland.-History:The library was established with a bequest from Stephen Mitchell, a wealthy tobacco manufacturer, whose company, Stephen Mitchell & Son, would become one of the constituent members...
and to the Art Gallery of NSW.
Sources
Confusingly to people from outside New South Wales, the Sydney Morning Herald is frequently referred to as simply The Herald, which was the name of a quite unrelated Victorian newspaper (since 1990 absorbed into The Herald SunHerald Sun
The Herald Sun is a morning tabloid newspaper based in Melbourne, Australia. It is published by The Herald and Weekly Times, a subsidiary of News Limited, itself a subsidiary of News Corporation. It is available for purchase throughout Melbourne, Regional Victoria, Tasmania, the Australian Capital...
).
- http://www.smh.com.au/news/obituaries/a-trailblazer-for-women-journalists/2006/08/02/1154198201807.html
- http://www.pen.org.au/docs/enews160806.htm
- http://www.sup.usyd.edu.au/projects_cal_titles.html (Smiling Buddha review)
- http://www.thesydneyinstitute.com.au/downloads/SIQ29.pdf
- The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature, E H Wilde, Joy Hooton, Barry Andrews, 2nd ed. Oxford University Press 1994