Mourners farewell legendary Age editor
It was 1963 and Creighton Burns was anchoring Channel Nine’s
coverage on election night. Much had been made of the station’s new
computer, which was to crunch the figures.
The computer crashed. Burns, under instructions to proceed
as if all was going to plan, continued with relish to give out
projections as if they had come from the dormant machine -
projections that he then disputed, and finally
refuted.
”No one was any the wiser,” said Tom Harley, the friend who
told the anecdote at the memorial service for Burns this
morning.
Creighton Burns, 82, who was the editor of The Age from
1981 to 1989, died last week after a long illness.
He is survived by his partner, Natasha Davies, and four
children, David, Creighton (Tam), Jonathan and Rebecca.
The memorial service in the dining hall of Melbourne
University’s Ormond College was attended by about 450 mourners,
many of them from the media, academia and politics.
They included state Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu, former
federal ministers Barry Jones and John Button, former Premier John
Cain, businessman John Elliott, historian Geoffrey Blainey, poet
Chris Wallace-Crabbe and former Age editors Michael
Gawenda, Mike Smith, Les Carlyon and Greg Taylor.
Former Age senior journalist John Hamilton, now with
the Herald Sun, recalled his adventures with Burns
while they were both working as correspondents in the United
States.
Hamilton said he and Burns had covered everything from
fund-raisers in Washington to presidential trips on the
Mississippi.
Burns and other deceased former foreign correspondents had now
”gone on their final assignment together, off to cover the
greatest story of all the unknown”.
Ranald MacDonald, former managing director of David Syme and Co,
then publisher of The Age, said it was a huge
responsibility to be a newspaper editor.
”You are required to enter into public discussion and debate
while observing, questioning, collecting views and information,
planning ahead while at the same time contributing as a senior
executive in a public company. Political, advertising and social
pressures are part of your daily routine.
”Creighton met all the demands of this job description, and
then some. I’d give him an A-plus.”
He said Burns had fought tirelessly for editorial
independence, for robust journalistic excellence and for the
public’s right to know.
Ms Davies said she first met Burns in 1959 when he was a
lecturer at Melbourne University and she was a student.
Later in life they shared a love of politics, theatre and
classical music. ”I was attracted to his integrity, his honesty
… he was a truly honourable man.”
Although Burns’ health deteriorated in his final months, he
maintained his dignity to the end, she said.
Mr Burns’ son Jonathan remembered him as the high-flying career
man who gave up The Age editorship when his wife, Anita,
fell ill.
She died in 1989, leaving him a full-time single father with two
young children.
”He treated everyone with esteem and compassion,” Jonathan
said.
”Every goodbye he ever said to me always ended with two
words - love you.”
The former foreign correspondent - Burns covered
Washington for The Age from 1975 to 1981 - faithfully
made his children’s dinners every night and lunches every
day, wrapping their chicken and avocado sandwiches in waxed paper
and including a love note in their lunch boxes.
At night, the winner of the Graham Perkin Journalist of the Year
Award would lean over his children’s shoulders and help sharpen the
prose in their school essays. ”Every job he was offered he
excelled at, including parenthood,” Jonathan said.
Other speakers at the funeral included former Age
journalist John Tidey and businessman Tom Harley.
Former High Court Judge Sir Daryl Dawson, Fairfax chairman Ron
Walker, chief executive of The Age Don Churchill,
editor-in-chief Andrew Jaspan and ABC journalist Virginia Trioli
were also among the mourners.
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Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 12:11 am under