Tears, trauma and telexes: Hugh Riminton signs off after a lifetime
For veteran newsman Hugh Riminton, turning up at Channel Ten for his last day of daily reporting on Friday, the emotions were strong – and not just for the creeping finality of it. It was reflecting on the sheer amount of time between his professional curtain rising and now falling – and the change he has seen in a career spanning no fewer than six decades.
No, it was not quite that when he started the curtain cords were steam-driven, while now they’re AI-programmed, but it’s close.
“The first major news story I covered,” he says, “was the Mount Erebus plane disaster in the late ’70s. My radio station in Christchurch sent a telegram, delivered by cable boy, ordering me to come in to work. The newsroom ran on telexes and manual typewriters. As I leave today, everyone, everywhere, is connected, to just about everything happening in the world.”
But what a time he has had over those years, what stories he has chronicled, what people he has met, what organisations he has worked for, including a long stint with CNN.
Asked to reflect on the highs and lows, the most moving moments he has been a witness to, he responds instantly.
“The one I think about most often,” he says, “is being with Colin Powell on the night in November 2008 that Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. Powell was a Republican who many thought might be the first black president. His wife convinced him not to run, fearing assassination. As I spoke to him, he wept, he was so moved that a black man had finally made it. When the interview was over, he did a strange thing. He stood up and hugged me. I hugged him back. We both recognised just how historic this moment was for the world. It was such a privilege to share that. I don’t think I’ve ever lost that sense of privilege.”
The most harrowing?
“Port Arthur,” he says flatly. “I had just landed in Melbourne and my phone was going off. ‘Gunman loose in Tassie. Get on a flight to Hobart immediately.’ I got there while he was still shooting.”
Asked for the most compelling image he retains from that terrible day that is still publishable, he pauses.
“It was going into the site with a police escort, hours after the massacre, when the evidence of the slaughter was so obvious. It was … soul-shaking.”
That day marked him forever.
“There were birds in Port Arthur called plovers. They have a loud, distinctive cackle. To this day when I hear that sound, when I even see a plover, I … I … I …”
Can’t go on?
“It takes me back.”
And the most extraordinary person you met?
“Nelson Mandela,” he says. “People talk of Winston Churchill as the greatest human of the 20th century, and there might be an argument there. But for me, there were three moral giants: Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela.”
Riminton was there on the night in Johannesburg’s Carlton Hotel when the results of South Africa’s first free election were announced.
“The room was filled with veterans of the struggle, legends of the cause,” he recalls, “mixed with the rising generation. There was a band playing on stage. Suddenly, it stopped. Nelson Mandela came out.”
Again, Riminton’s voice becomes husky.
“Mandela said in this stern, serious voice: ‘I have just received a call from the Independent Electoral Commission …’ And then he read the results from around the country. The ANC had won nearly two-thirds of the vote. He was the new president.”
And now the moment.
“‘For the first time,’ Mandela said, ‘we now know the true meaning of the words: Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, we are free at last’.” He was quoting Martin Luther King. The room went nuts. He did a small toyi-toyi dance, and left the stage.”
Cut!
Riminton heard a strange noise that sounded like a roar from the air-conditioning. He opened a window.
“The streets were utterly packed. Hundreds of thousands of black faces, dancing, celebrating. A power plant of joyful energy.”
But look, Hugh, given you have known such moments, and there is no suggestion there is any diminution in the quality of your work, even though you’re nudging towards 70, why leave now?
“The time is right. My son is doing the HSC, and my father in New Zealand is approaching 100. I need to spend time with both.”
The state of journalism you see, as you leave?
“Fractured. The sources of information have splintered, as has the advertising market. It is those advertisers who have traditionally underpinned good journalism, and now they’re scattered. That’s a huge challenge for journalism.”
So what’s the solution?
“There can only be one. People must realise there is a real value – for themselves and the world – in paying for facts-based journalism. If you don’t pay for quality, you won’t get quality, and society loses its way.”
But enough, Hugh. That is surely the great-grandson of the cable boy now knocking on the door. Ten minutes to showtime, Mr Riminton. Forty minutes to the final curtain. What’s your final bit of advice to young hungry journos looking to the future?
“Journalism,” he says, “is like jazz music. It’s harder than it looks. It’s a public good. It’s great fun. But unless you’re Miles Davis, don’t expect to make any money out of it.”
Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Hugh Riminton!
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