Evan Whitton

Evan Whitton (5 March 1928 – 16 July 2018) was an Australian journalist.

Whitton was raised in Murgon in Queensland, and went away to boarding school at age eight. He worked as a teacher for 14 years in Toowoomba before securing a ful-time role as a journalist with The Toowoomba Chronicle. He then worked as a reporter for the Melbourne newspaper Truth before working briefly for the new Sunday Australian in 1971. During the 1970s Whitton worked for The National Times where he became assistant editor from 1975 to 1978 and editor from 1978 to 1981. He then moved to the Sydney Morning Herald as chief reporter. After a period as Reader in Journalism at the University of Queensland from 1990, he was a columnist with the online legal journal Justinian. Much of his later writing focussed on analysis and comparison of the investigative and adversarial systems of justice.

Whitton won five Walkley Awards, for Best Newspaper Feature Story in 1967 and 1975, Best Piece of Newspaper Reporting in 1970, and Best Story Published in an Australian Magazine in 1973 and 1974.

In 1983 he was awarded the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year award and in 2011 was made an inaugural member of the Australian Media Hall of Fame.

Whitton died on 16 July 2018, aged 90.

Early life and education Whitton was born in Muswellbrook NSW on 5 March 1928 to Thomas Evan Whitton and Bernice Collopy.

Whitton's father had been among the earliest volunteers to sign up to serve in World War 1, fighting at Gallipoli and at Pozieres on the Western Front where he was badly wounded, eventually requiring the amputation of both legs.

On his eventual repatriation to Australia and recuperation, he purchased, with his backpay, the Muswellbrook Chronicle newspaper in partnership with his brother-in-law and remained the joint owner of the newspaper from 1921 to 1936.

In 1936 Whitton's father moved the family to Murgon, a small town north-west of Brisbane where he ran a newsagency and stationery store.

Teaching career and rugby involvement On completing his studies at Downlands, Whitton attended Queensland Teachers College and, in the early 1950s, returned to Downlands teaching mainly English and social studies In 1963, he was part of a group that reformed the Toowoomba Rangers club side to play in the Brisbane competition During this period Whitton also began writing as a stringer for the Toowoomba Chronicle. At Truth, a weekly tabloid devoted to smut and scandal, he worked under the editorship of Fleet Street veteran Solly Chandler. Mark Day, a columnist for The Australian and former part-owner of Truth, said Whitton regarded the tabloid as a place where he could do "something noble in the art of muckraking and shedding light".

Whitton wrote about the corrupt underbelly of Victoria during the Liberal premiership of Henry Bolte and his deputy Sir Arthur Rylah, winning two Walkley awards for his work. Whitton won his first Walkley for Best Newspaper Feature story in 1967 and his second, in 1970, for his 1969 coverage of Bertram Wainer's allegations of police extortion from abortion clinics which led to the 1970 Board of Inquiry into Allegations of Corruption in the Police Force in Connection with Illegal Abortion headed by William Kaye AO QC. The investigation exploded the myth that then prime minister, Robert Menzies had sent his troops to war as a loyal US ally. Damning diplomatic documents confirmed it was Menzies who had pushed the US into war. Whitton went on to become assistant editor of the National Times from 1975 to 1978 and editor from 1978 to 1981.

In 1981 he moved to The Sydney Morning Herald as chief reporter.

"My old master, Sol Chandler, observed that the first task of the reporter is to interest the customer" said Whitton in 1987 at the launch his book, Amazing Scenes.

Whitton used a story telling style, establishing boxes with details of time and place meticulously laid out and, putting new fact within the context of what had gone before, would then go on to reveal the connections he had established between the boxes and show a previously unapparent reality.

While Whitton was working as The Sydney Morning Heralds European correspondent in 1984 he and Noela finally married. The ceremony was held at the Australian embassy in Paris, with Gough Whitlam, former Prime Minister and then ambassador to UNESCO, as best man and Margaret Whitlam matron of honour.