Chairman Bill Troedel with old school mate Tony Walker.
Tony receiving some advice?
 
 
 
Chairman Bill Troedel introduced Tony Walker long term foreign correspondent, newspaper editor, financial/political analyst-editor and overall supremo journalist with various leading newspapers in Australia and overseas.   There was mentioned a spell when he was in charge of editing tape recordings removing "ums" and "ahs' from interviews!   That of course was 45 years back when he first started out in the journalist business.... as a cadet with the ABC.
 
With such a wide choice of topics available, complete with journalistic awards, it might be a task to focus on one 20 minute address.  Still Tony was cleverly able to give the audience a great impression of his journey overall, commenting  as an observer and on stints overseas in Beijing, Cairo and Washington at several crucial times in the countries' developments-- especially the first two, China and Egypt. 
 
Interspersed with that we got some personal views, first  of his family's reaction to his career choice and of his own thoughts on career movements and of one to one interactions with senior leaders in the newspaper business, bureaucrats and even prime ministers.  
 
As to "why Journalism" Tony joked of his aim to irritate people, and make them think.  That maybe but one noted a keen analytical approach, concern for conveying facts and a general desire to be where things happen and enjoy the adventure of being there.  His account of the dramatic changes in China in the last 20 plus years underlined that passion.
 
Overrunning the allotted time questions from the audience provided great discussion and comment on Egypt and the Middle East, journalists and opinion-making, freedom of speech, the role of the ABC, and most of all the changing position of newspapers as advertising revenues were challenged by other forms of news communication.
 
This was all fascinating.  Tony too, contributed his opinions, doubtless developed from his experiences and objective analysis.