“A day began with a reasoned point of view about something: politics, sport, religion, veterans, lifestyle – current issues on which readers held an opinion to be confirmed or questioned by the editorial.” Columnist HUGH SELBY wants to make editorials great again.

Dear newspaper editors,

Do you remember when your masthead editorials mattered? I can remember, as can a few of my readers, when the editorial was where it should be – on the front page. 

There it could be seen as soon as the paperboy handed over the paper outside the train station or near the bus or tram stop, or the ferry wharf. “Read all about it” were words of promise. 

A day began with a reasoned point of view about something: politics, sport, religion, veterans, lifestyle – current issues on which readers held an opinion to be confirmed or questioned by the editorial.

Suburbia was moving from dunny trucks and septic tanks to sewage. Some newspapers made it as far as the outside dunny, to be read by candlelight or torch, and then used again. Slim Newton’s rendition of the song of the redback spider on the toilet seat, not seen in the dark, is worth relistening to.

If the morning paper (broadsheet or tabloid) was delivered, and it wasn’t sodden by the rain (a problem solved much later by plastic wrapping), then it would be read, seen and talked about (over the songs, news, or comment coming from the bakelite wireless valve radio), when it was on the kitchen table, perched among the plates, the toast, the porridge, the jam, the brown sugar, the eggs from the hen house near the dunny, and the butter.

Pages would be lifted to meet family demands: news and opinion to you, sport to you, racing program to you, etcetera.

Yes, those were the front page editorial days and the days of dairy. The dairy lobby kept margarine off the table and restricted to the food preparation area.

Milk – a must for tea, cereal, custard and baked rice pudding – was delivered to billy cans of various sizes. Mum caught the milko thinning the milk with water from the garden tap one morning. He never thinned it there again – didn’t dare. Who wants to be hit around the head with a rolled up newspaper while being chased around the front garden with the cry: “You bloody thief” attracting the attention of the amused neighbourhood?

The smell of Craven A and Ardath cigarettes seeped into clothes. Cigarette smoke puts a greasy, hard-to-remove film on the inside of car windscreens. Slightly soggy newsprint was a good way to get it off.

No one wore seatbelts, and people expected to get drunk and then drive. In 1956, the year of the Melbourne Olympics, more than 2000 perished, a rate of 22.5 per 100,000 population. (The rate peaked at 30.4 in 1970, but in 2024 the rate was down to 4.8 per 100,000 which meant 1300 deaths. Still no rest for the ambos and the police.) 

Getting people to understand that lives would be saved, that people would live longer if they quit smoking, wore a seatbelt in the car, and drank much less before driving – these were lifestyle changes pushed in the print media. As an example see, here for tobacco. 

Come on out

That was then. Now there are fewer papers, paywalls everywhere and forever, and online social influencers. 

Among the last are those whose stock in trade, indeed their only stock, is endless repetition of distortion and lies that finds a ready audience among the gullible and the paranoid.

Successful social influencers can rely on advertising, as does CityNews. This has the advantage for users that no coin, no charge card is necessary: search and you can find the good, the bad and downright ugly.

The steady shift away from mainstream media towards online social media is succinctly summarised in the 2024 digital news report. More than one quarter of us now rely upon social media for news. Increasing numbers take their news by way of short videos. Is it more convenient to press phone buttons than turn on the TV?

One unsolved shortcoming of social media is that it is “now” information followed quickly by becoming “forgotten” information. There is no opportunity to consider, to muse, to ponder. There is neither the time nor the material to allow such reflection.

But that could be changed and easily. Editorials and OpEd pieces have a relevance at least of days, and often weeks or more.

Those pieces deserve attention beyond their day of publication, and by an audience beyond their paying subscribers.

We need a free The Best of the Week published online in which the best and contrasting editorials and OpEd pieces are reposted to a much wider audience.

That means that all those publishers with firewalls can accept that they will get both kudos and more subscriptions by releasing their content to The Best of the Week for free once it is a day or two old.

The site needs: funding to set it up; a couple of experienced and respected journalists to gather material; a board of respected people to ensure it remains balanced in its coverage; and advertisers to cover its running costs – which include advertising the existence of the site a la Harvey Norman to ensure that the site is known to everyone.

Maybe mainstream editors, like you, would like to endorse this plan in an editorial so that your proprietors make it happen?

Make editorials great again,

Hugh

Author Hugh Selby is a CityNews columnist, principally focused on legal affairs. His free podcasts on Witness Essentials and Advocacy in court: preparation and performance can be heard on the best known podcast sites.