Some recent Canberra Times editors share their most memorable front pages.
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Ian Mathews, editor from 1972, now retired and still living in Canberra.
"Sunday, May 28, 1978, which saw the first Sunday edition of The Canberra Times. We made a deliberate decision not to change the broadsheet format or the masthead.
We launched it as a seven-day a week newspaper. We did have some complaints that we published the Saturday crossword results in the new Sunday edition instead of the usual Monday edition! Tuesday, March 31, 1981, The Canberra Times produced a mid-morning special edition to cover the assassination attempt on US President Ronald Reagan.
On May 13, 1981, (but about 2am, May 14 our time) after the edition had left the Mort Street premises for the press at Fyshwick, we received a flash from AAP that Pope John Paul II had been shot. We replaced the front page several times as news emerged that he was shot/rushed to hospital/ not dead/ seriously wounded."
David Armstrong, editor in 1992-93, now living in Thailand.
"The front page I most remember is the one on Nick Greiner's resignation after the ICAC got him.
"The reason for picking it still stands:throughout its history there were periods when the CT wanted to be a national paper ("Australia's Washington Post") and other periods when it was decidedly local.
"My view (expressed at the staff meeting when I arrived) was that it didn't matter: the main game in Canberra was politics and government and CT should cover it strongly whether local or national. Here was the policy in practice: it was the big political story of the day/week/month and it didn't matter that it was north of the border."
Michelle Grattan, editor 1993 to 1995, now chief political correspondent at The Conversation.
"We put out a special edition for the announcement of the Sydney Olympics.
"We sat around until God know's what hour. It was Mark Metherell, Mary-Ellen Hepworth, myself and Andrew Fraser.
"I don't think we expected Sydney to get it. We planned to do a special edition if we did but I think we feared we'd be just going through the motions.
"And then of course we did get it and we put out the edition.
"What I liked was that we had the story and showed that we could get out something that was so significant so quickly, The Canberra Times really looked competitive when it mattered."
Crispin Hull, editor from 1985 to 1992. Now living in Far North Queensland and teaching at ANU remotely.
Hull chose a front page from 1989 featuring a cartoon by Geoff Pryor and heralding the start of Liberal leader Trevor Kaine's reign as chief minister after a no-confidence vote in Labor's Rosemary Follett.
"It was a major local story of significant interest to our readers. It is very rare indeed for a state/territory government to fall on a vote of no-confidence purely on the numbers and not through any malfeasance.
"In those days we battled with very poor printing technology. There was no colour. Black and white photos often came up poorly. Geoff Pryor came up with an excellent drawing. It was extremely prescient with the 'use by date' of the No Self-Government MLA — they were out at the next election."
Michael Stevens, editor from 2002 to 2006, now director operations Australian Publishing Media.
"The stand out during my few years at the Times was the front page we published on the Monday - January 20, 2003 - after fire devastated Canberra on the Saturday and Sunday.
"It was a simple but powerful presentation. An aerial photo of a devastated suburb, reduced to a burnt-out shell. Look closely and you can see a resident sifting through the remains of their home. The solitude of this person struck me when we were choosing that image for the front page.
Across the top of the page were the three words: "Our worst day". So few words said so much.
At the end of a massive day in the newsroom we were struggling to come up with the right words to portray a sense of the Canberra community being in this disaster together. It was Sally Hopman, a sub editor at The Canberra Times for many years, who at about midnight on the Sunday, with deadline to press past and the pressure on us to complete the edition hanging heavy, came up with these words. The words captured perfectly the reality of what Canberrans had faced, and were now facing as one.
The outside view of Canberra and Canberrans changed that weekend, and maybe Canberrans' view of themselves did too. Sally's words were perfect. A powerful statement.
The page was all the more powerful in the broadsheet format that The Canberra Times has carried for so long."
Peter Fray, editor in 2009, now professor or journalism practice at the University of Technology Sydney.
"From my time I really loved the big moments of national commemoration [such as Anzac Day]. Canberra is a special place to be most of the time but such days it really puts its best foot forward. The other front I recall was the Olympic flame day, it was great showpiece of Canberra times photos , words and production."
Mark Baker, editor May, 2006 to April, 2008, now chief executive of the Melbourne Press Club.
"My favourite without doubt was the Sunday edition after Rudd's 2007 election victory.
"I turned the tabloid Sunday into a broadsheet just for that day - despite some serious reservations in management. It looked fantastic with the victory picture right across the front.
"Because the Sydney Sundays couldn't get the election result into their Canberra editions we had the big news to ourselves on the newspaper stands that morning. The edition sold out early - the first time in living memory."
Jack Waterford, appointed editor in 1995 and editor-in-chief in 2001, now retired.
"My favourite, from a long list, would have to be our report of the ACT government's using a green spray on the frost-burnt turf of Bruce Stadium so as to assure Olympic officials that all was well for use of the stadium for soccer during the 2000 Olympics.
When I was first tipped off by an official, I simply did not believe it, even though it fitted with a long line of farce involving construction and cost overruns at Bruce Stadium. Without any belief in its truth, I asked a reporter to check out what I had been told.
We discovered it all to be true - an immortal, but telling, tale of political and bureaucratic folly, made worse by efforts to explain. All Canberra roared with laughter, and it was, I think, a big factor in the demise of a then seemingly indestructible Kate Carnell.
Rod Quinn, editor/editor in chief from 2009 to 2014, now editorial director, Australian Community Media.
"The full-page illustration by artist Jim Kaucz, which appeared on the front of The Canberra Times on October 19, 2013, was a unique way to celebrate the national capital's 100th birthday.
Canberra 100 was a break from hard news that celebrated Canberra in all its eclectic glory, from the obvious - Parliament House - to the more understated, such as the pears sculpture outside the National Gallery and the signs to the shops.
It was an illustration that summed up the fabric of Canberra life and all the elements that help to create a vibrant city.
The pen and ink illustration was commissioned by The Canberra Times as a lasting souvenir of the centenary year and showed all the wonderful idiosyncrasies of a city that we are proud to serve and call home."
James Joyce, editor from December, 2013 to February, 2015. Now executive editor of Fairfax Media's regional, rural and suburban publishing business, Australian Community Media.
"One of the privileges - and joys - of working at The Canberra Times is working alongside some passionate and exceptionally talented editors, journalists, photographers, designers and illustrators. One of the many in my time at the Times has been cartoonist David Pope, who won the Walkley Award in 2015 for his internationally acclaimed image "He drew first", a poignant but pointed sketch he shared on social media as he watched live coverage of the aftermath of the January 2015 attack on the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Here's what I told Canberra Times staff the day we ran David's cartoon full width across our broadsheet front page: "I don't know about you, but the first thing I saw when I woke up on Thursday morning was a Facebook post from our David Pope.
"It featured a cartoon he'd felt compelled to sketch as he watched the shocking news from France unfold overnight.
"Time stamp on the FB post: 2.14am. Those of us who went to sleep after midnight with that awful rooftop footage from Paris in our heads woke to a simple but powerful image that captured the horror and the outrage and the insanity of the Charlie Hebdo attack.
"As we now know, David's cartoon travelled around the globe at astonishing speed to become part of the international community's attempt to comprehend the issues at the heart of the crime.
"And today it landed back on the front page of The Canberra Times [and The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age].
"David, thank you for doing what you do, and for the way you go about it.
"We are all incredibly proud to work with you."
Current editor of The Canberra Times, Grant Newton.
'Hearing about it was bad enough but to see it – now that's another matter. That poor little boy.'
"A typical reaction from a reader to the shocking image of a steel cage used to confine a 10-year-old autistic child in a Canberra school – published on the front page on Thursday, September 10, 2015.
Though unremarkable in design, the front page was a standout in underlining the newspaper's long-running commitment to exposing uncomfortable and inconvenient truths.
The cage, which for months had been described euphemistically by authorities as a "sanctuary space" and "withdrawal space" was exposed for what it was – a two metre by two metre steel structure with a self-closing latch and door that more resembled a prison cell.
Importantly, the front page was a great example of quality, independent journalism from reporter Emma Macdonald, who, despite strong and enduring resistance, remained determined to shine a light on an issue that many people in power would have preferred remain cloaked in the darkness of political double-speak and half-truths."
