Nation Review

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Nation Review was an Australian Sunday newspaper, which ceased publication in 1981. It was launched in 1972 after independent publisher Gordon Barton bought out Tom Fitzgerald's Nation publication and merged it with his own Sunday Review journal.[1]

Background[edit]

Nation Review featured contributors such as Michael Leunig,[2] Bob Ellis, Germaine Greer, Phillip Adams, Richard Beckett a.k.a. Sam Orr,[3] Mungo MacCallum, John Hindle, Francis James, Patrick Cook, Morris Lurie, John Hepworth, Fred Flatow and Jenny Brown a.k.a. Zesta (now Jen Jewel Brown).

The paper was self-styled "The Ferret",[4] fancying itself as "lean and nosey".[5]

Nation Review was aimed at Australia's new urban, educated middle class, providing mocking political commentary, offbeat cartoons, iconoclastic film, book, music and theatre reviews, and food, wine, chess, and even motoring columns. The paper's satirical tone matched the style of Australian university newspapers like Honi Soit and Tharunka, from which publications many of its contributors and editors had graduated.

Nation Review editorial policy was egalitarian and anti-establishment.[6] The paper was pro-Labor, or at least, pro political change but, after the Federal Labor victory of 1972, "disillusionment set in", according to former editor Richard Walsh.[citation needed]

It was sufficiently self referencing at times with changes to style and cost.[clarification needed][7] At times derivative broadsheets and offshoot publications like George Munster's response to the new Medicare in Medibunk appeared.[8]

Its publication history was similar to another weekly newspaper The National Times.

Nation Review survived several mergers and name changes.[9][10][11][12]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ "The Life and Work of Tom Fitzgerald: Nation". Retrieved 7 February 2022.
  2. ^ Michael Leunig (1974) The Penguin Leunig, Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-004019-6
  3. ^ Sam Orr (Richard Beckett) (1980) Roll On, Brave New Bloody World. Sydney: Angus and Robertson. ISBN 0-207-14052-9
  4. ^ Walsh, Richard (1993), Ferretabilia : life and times of Nation review, University of Queensland Press, ISBN 978-0-7022-2450-8
  5. ^ Purported retrospective digital website nationreview.com (Melbourne, Vic.)
  6. ^ "Letters". Tribune. No. 1828. Sydney. 30 October 1973. p. 10. Retrieved 20 July 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  7. ^ "Nation Review reviews itself". The Canberra Times. Vol. 52, no. 15, 513. 17 February 1978. p. 3. Retrieved 20 July 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  8. ^ Nation review (Melbourne, Vic.) (issuing body.) (1976), Nation Review : Medibunk!, Melbourne Nation Review, retrieved 20 July 2017
  9. ^ Nation review, Incorporated Newsagencies Co, 1972, ISSN 0156-8221
  10. ^ "Nation Review sold". The Canberra Times. Vol. 52, no. 15, 612. 20 June 1978. p. 10. Retrieved 20 July 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  11. ^ "Nation Review to appear again". The Canberra Times. Vol. 54, no. 16, 098. 22 October 1979. p. 15. Retrieved 20 July 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  12. ^ "Nation Review back on sale". The Canberra Times. Vol. 54, no. 16, 157. 20 December 1979. p. 11. Retrieved 20 July 2017 – via National Library of Australia.

References[edit]

  • Walsh, Richard (1993), Ferretabilia : life and times of Nation review, University of Queensland Press, ISBN 978-0-7022-2450-8
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