Introducing Douglas Brass

War correspondent, journalist and newspaper executive

New Zealand-born Douglas Brass’s remarkable, four-decade career as a journalist, war correspondent and newspaper executive gave him a unique view of a turbulent period in world history. After his death a former colleague described him as ‘one of Australia’s great newspaper men’. Yet this prominent journalist, so close to many significant events, remains virtually unknown in his own country.

Born in Invercargill, Brass was educated at Southland Boys’ High School and Waitaki Boys’ High School before attending Canterbury College of the University of New Zealand. After graduating with a Master of Arts with first class honours in history and a Diploma of Journalism, he joined the Press in Christchurch, becoming the paper’s parliamentary reporter in Wellington in 1934, at the age of 24. The following year Brass began working for the Melbourne Argus. In 1937 he joined the Herald, also in Melbourne, where he worked closely with Sir Keith Murdoch. This was the start of a long relationship with the Murdoch family. In 1939, as correspondent for the Herald, he was back in New Zealand, covering the country’s response to the outbreak of the Second
World War.

Shortly after returning to Australia in November 1941, and with his own profile developing, he wrote a major Herald feature, headlined ‘These are the New Zealanders’, about the Kiwis fighting at Sidi Rezegh in Libya. Late in 1942 he became the Herald’s war correspondent; his reporting was acclaimed and internationally published. In 1943 he followed the progress of the Eighth Army in North Africa, witnessing the end of the desert war in Tunisia, and subsequently covered the invasion of Sicily and mainland Italy.

After the war he reported extensively and intelligently on European affairs and also established himself as an admired royal correspondent, attending the coronation and travelling with the new monarch on her Commonwealth tour of 1953–54. Brass went on to become Rupert Murdoch’s eminence grise and played a major role in the establishment of The Australian. His powerful columns opposing Australia’s participation in the Vietnam War were extremely influential. After his retirement in 1970 Brass and his wife Joan continued to live in Melbourne. He died in 1994.

‘Find out more’: Australian Dictionary of Biography: Henry Douglas Brass (1910–1994) by Denis Cryle
https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/brass-henry-douglas-30134

Douglas Brass: War Correspondent

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Tunis is Mad Tonight: The Life and Times of New Zealand Journalist Douglas Brass
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