AustLit logo

AustLit

Mark Day Mark Day i(A78874 works by)
Gender: Male
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Works By

Preview all
1 Truth Could Be Stranger Than Fiction Mark Day , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 19 December 2020; (p. 16)

— Review of The Awful Truth : My Adventures with Australia's Most Notorious Tabloid Adrian Tame , 2020 single work autobiography
1 Their Big Stories Are Ours as Well Mark Day , 2017 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 18 November 2017; (p. 26)

'From the first day on the job, it is drummed into the heads of young journalists that the most importa­nt part of a story is the first paragraph. It should arrest the reader’s attention, grip the imaginat­ion and excite interest to read on.' (Introduction)

1 Insights Worth the Risk of Offence Mark Day , 2016 single work column
— Appears in: The Australian , 19 September 2016; (p. 24)
1 News (Adelaide) Mark Day , 2014 single work companion entry
— Appears in: A Companion to the Australian Media : N 2014; (p. 299)
1 Pearl, Cyril Alston (1906–87) Mark Day , 2014 single work companion entry
— Appears in: A Companion to the Australian Media : P 2014; (p. 336)

PEARL, CYRIL ALSTON (1906–87)

Cyril Pearl studied philosophy and the Russian language at the University of Melbourne, but did not take a degree. Instead, in 1931 he edited the student newspaper Farrago, where he championed ‘uninhibited thinking’—and his own editorials caused some, including the sporting editor, Alan Moorehead, to puzzle over what on earth they meant. That year, Pearl also established a short-lived literary magazine, Stream, with capital of £40. In 1933 he joined the Star, the Argus’s new challenger to the Melbourne Herald, and in 1935 organised a debate about censorship in the Melbourne Town Hall.

With the collapse of the Star in 1936, Pearl joined an exodus to Sydney to join the Daily Telegraph, re-launched by (Sir) Frank Packer’s Consolidated Press. Intellectually fearless, witty, cynical and iconoclastic, Pearl worked as leader writer then features editor. In 1939 he became inaugural editor of the Sunday Telegraph. Handwritten signatures and ‘Memos from the Editor’ were a feature of the newspaper, which was known for its liberalism; the paper also played a central role in the 1944 censorship dispute. From 1948, Pearl simultaneously edited a new monthly magazine, A.M.; he stopped editing the Sunday Telegraph in 1950 and resigned from Consolidated Press to write books in 1953. John Hetherington writes, somewhat too dismissively, of Pearl: ‘His period in journalism hardly matters, except as it deferred his emergence as a writer’.

Pearl sprang to prominence in 1958 with Wild Men of Sydney, which told the story of the Rabelaisian lives of publisher John Norton and his cohorts, William (Paddy) Crick and William Willis, all NSW parliamentarians. The work so incensed living descendants of the trio that they persuaded the NSW government to rush through legislation to allow defamation of the dead. Writing as ‘Melbourne Spy’ and ‘Tom Ugly’, Pearl also contributed to Nation (‘the most exciting event in publishing I have been associated with’) and Nation Review.

He wrote more than 20 books, including a biography of George Ernest Morrison (1967), and edited a selection of the works of cartoonist Lennie Lower (1963). Pearl had a brief, joyous return to Sydney journalism as editor (1960–61) of the Sunday Mirror, which bore the marks of Nation’s influence, before he was sacked by Rupert Murdoch.

Pearl’s first wife, Irma, died of cancer in 1962. In 1964, while appearing as a panellist on the television quiz show Any Questions?, he met Patricia Mary (Paddy) Donohue. She became his lover, helper, assistant, researcher, organiser, typist and, in 1965, his wife. They travelled extensively in Eastern Europe during the Cold War before returning to Sydney, where he became an influential literary figure, writing a column for the Sydney Morning Herald and appearing on the ABC Television game show Would You Believe? (1970–74).

REFs: J. Hetherington, Forty-Two Faces (1963); C. Pearl Papers (NLA).

MARK DAY

1 Sunday Mail (Adelaide) Mark Day , 2014 single work companion entry
— Appears in: A Companion to the Australian Media : S 2014; (p. 448)
1 Women Brave Frontline of War and Misogny Mark Day , 2012 single work review
— Appears in: The Australian , 26 October 2012; (p. 15)

— Review of Heroic Australian Women in War : Astonishing Tales of Bravery from Galliopoli to Kokoda 2004 selected work biography
1 Battle for the Breaker Mark Day , 2012 single work column
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian Magazine , 14 - 15 July 2012; (p. 25-28)
1 Stop Me If You’ve Heard This Before . . . Master Storyteller Tills Some Familiar Fields Mark Day , 2011 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 17-18 September 2011; (p. 22-23)

— Review of Say It With Feeling Gerald Stone , 2011 single work autobiography
1 Great Editor's Biography Recalls a Revolution That Kicked the Stuffing Out of Newspapers Mark Day , 2010 single work column
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 22-23 May 2010; (p. 7)
1 Film Digs up Forgotten Past of War's Hill 60 Tunnellers Mark Day , 2010 single work column
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 27-28 March 2010; (p. 5)
1 Home Proceeds Go to Science Mark Day , 2009 single work column
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 31 October - 1 November 2009; (p. 3)
1 1 A Fortunate Life Mark Day , 2009 single work column
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 31 October - 1 November 2009; (p. 6-7)
1 Wolff at Murdoch's Door Leaves Empty-Handed Mark Day , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: The Australian Literary Review , February vol. 4 no. 1 2009; (p. 12-13)

— Review of The Man Who Owns the News : Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch Michael Wolff , 2008 single work biography
X