Press and protest : the Springbok tour of 1971

This analysis will focus on the Australian's newspaper coverage of the South African Springbok's tumultuous five-week rugby Union visit to Australia in 1971. It argues that, in the years preceding the tour, the Australian, under the astute editorship of Adrian Deamer (1968-71), developed a reputation as a progressive paper, a reputation confirmed by Mungo MacCallum in his recent recollections of post-war journalism and politics (2001). Based on primary sources and interviews, as well as on relevant issues of the Australian itself, this article will argue that its critical coverage of the tour helped to trigger dramatic changes at the newspaper itself and anticipated subsequent managerial intervention during 1974-75, when Australian journalists went on strike over political interference with their reporting. With the fall of the Whitlam government, an event which its proprietor Rupert Murdoch had helped to precipitate (Menadue 1999: 11 7ff) , the liberal reputation of the Australian collapsed. But the seeds of this political shift can be traced back to the Springbok tour and to Adrian Deamer's abrupt departure as its editor. It will be shown that, having taken a strong editorial position against the tour, Deamer's Australian maintained its critical stance until the final leg in Queensland, when Deamer was abruptly replaced as editor. By late 1971, the removal of Deamer had ongoing repercussions for the Australian significantly muting the Australian's voice as an opponent of Vietnam and a prominent critic of conservative coalition policies.