Journalism’s seedy underbelly
Martin Doyle
Truth: The rise and fall of the people’s paper, by Redmer Yska, Craig Potton Publishing, 204pp, reviewed by Martin Doyle.
THE Truth newspaper was the most dangerous thing ever to come out of Wellington. Like a man-eating crocodile it tore and devoured countless reputations, government departments and proud politicians. With an almost dirty-old-man obsession with sex, violence, aliens, oddity and wrong-doing, it became New Zealand’s most popular nationwide paper for most of the 20th century. And just so ladyfolk didn’t feel left out, for a while there was a nubile young woman with huge breasts on Page Three.
If you want to know ‘who the hell was behind this heinous trash?’, Redmer Yska shines a bright light into journalism’s darkest room. One of its Machiavellian editors got into drunken rages and threatened staff with a loaded pistol while terrified typists hid in the attic and typesetters died of lead poisoning on the floor of the printing press [You can’t coach that type of thing, as Justin Marshall would say].
Truth’s journalists included Yska himself, two future Prime Ministers, our greatest Governor-General (using a pseudonym), and top-notch scribes like John A. Lee, Robin Hyde, Maurice Shadbolt and Pat Lawlor.
The weekly paper lurched from Left to Right, at times xenophobic, and even (under an Australian who viewed Kiwis as pig-ignorant wowsers) at times oozing a near-hatred of New Zealand itself.
Yska applies to the subject an objectivity and calmness the paper itself never possessed. He also analyses our media and culture in a way that is rare, even now, in New Zealand. Perhaps the most shocking thing he is able to explain (and very well) is the way this tabloid monster actually contributed a lot of good. Mind you, try telling that to the victims. Well referenced and astutely illustrated, this book delivers the long-awaited, long-suspected truth about Truth.
THE Truth newspaper was the most dangerous thing ever to come out of Wellington. Like a man-eating crocodile it tore and devoured countless reputations, government departments and proud politicians. With an almost dirty-old-man obsession with sex, violence, aliens, oddity and wrong-doing, it became New Zealand’s most popular nationwide paper for most of the 20th century. And just so ladyfolk didn’t feel left out, for a while there was a nubile young woman with huge breasts on Page Three.
If you want to know ‘who the hell was behind this heinous trash?’, Redmer Yska shines a bright light into journalism’s darkest room. One of its Machiavellian editors got into drunken rages and threatened staff with a loaded pistol while terrified typists hid in the attic and typesetters died of lead poisoning on the floor of the printing press [You can’t coach that type of thing, as Justin Marshall would say].
Truth’s journalists included Yska himself, two future Prime Ministers, our greatest Governor-General (using a pseudonym), and top-notch scribes like John A. Lee, Robin Hyde, Maurice Shadbolt and Pat Lawlor.
The weekly paper lurched from Left to Right, at times xenophobic, and even (under an Australian who viewed Kiwis as pig-ignorant wowsers) at times oozing a near-hatred of New Zealand itself.
Yska applies to the subject an objectivity and calmness the paper itself never possessed. He also analyses our media and culture in a way that is rare, even now, in New Zealand. Perhaps the most shocking thing he is able to explain (and very well) is the way this tabloid monster actually contributed a lot of good. Mind you, try telling that to the victims. Well referenced and astutely illustrated, this book delivers the long-awaited, long-suspected truth about Truth.
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