Sundays Bloody Sundays


On 20 August 1989 three new newspapers landed on the streets and doorsteps of Melbourne – The Sunday Herald, The Sunday Age and The Sunday Sun – and the city’s sleepy weekends would never be the same again.

The Sunday war between Rupert Murdoch and his Fairfax rivals was one of the most frenetic moments in Australian newspaper history – a time of big budgets, bigger egos and a poaching free-for-all. But within a couple of years only one of the Sundays survived as a stand-alone paper, scores of journalists were unemployed and the inexorable decline of print was under way.

Thirty years on, the Melbourne Press Club hosted a long lunch to relive the highs and ponder the lows of an extraordinary era. The event included a panel discussion and Q&A with:

  • Bruce Guthrie – founding deputy editor of The Sunday Age

  • Chris de Kretser – founding editor of The Sunday Sun

  • Steve Foley – founding deputy editor of The Sunday Herald

  • Louise Graham – former picture editor of The Sunday Age and the Sunday Herald Magazine

 

Videos

The Melbourne Press Club has five videos from this event: a recording of the panel discussion, the Sundays Bloody Sundays documentary, extended interviews with Steve Harris and Chris de Kretser, and a retelling of the Sunday Herald's Bougainville incident.

You can watch the videos separately below, or click here for a YouTube playlist.

Full event video:

 

Sundays Bloody Sundays documentary:

 

Extras:

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Membership is $100 for journalists, $150 for associate members and $40 for students.

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