The journey began in NSW and, after 50 sun-dappled summers in this business, it’s been a hell of a ride
Journalists of a certain era tend to embrace the perpendicular pronoun with all the enthusiasm of Scrooge hugging Tiny Tim. “I” might be the skinniest word but it punches its weight in vanity. Hugh McIlvanney famously would perform linguistic gymnastics in his perfectly crafted sentences so as to refer to himself as “this reporter”, thus diluting any suggestion it was the great man himself at the centre of the story – even though it often was.
He understood the pleasant fact that we are regularly hurled into the orbit of the famous. It can be a perilous place, where the trick is to balance professional distance and disguised awe, then avoid the gentle chiding of envious colleagues, friends and family.
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