The Age Charter of Editorial Independence was conceived in April 1988 during a spirited and successful campaign to prevent the swaggering British press tycoon Robert Maxwell from taking over The Age after Warwick Fairfax's financially disastrous purchase of the Fairfax group in 1987.
In an unprecedented display of solidarity and with an extraordinary response from eminent citizens and ordinary readers, a `Maintain Your Age' committee mounted a public campaign that helped to persuade the Federal Government to thwart the Maxwell threat.
The committee of journalists, with the backing of other employees and unions drafted a charter that reflected and sought to protect the prevailing ethos of editorial independence at The Age. It was adopted at a staff meeting, accepted by the editor Creighton Burns, approved by managing director Greg Taylor and eventually endorsed by the Fairfax board. The charter was subsequently extended to cover The Sunday Age.
Meanwhile in Sydney, a similar charter was adopted for the other major Fairfax publications with the approval of Warwick Fairfax.
In October 1990, when Fairfax went into receivership and the whole group was up for grabs, a meeting of editorial staff at The Age voted to reconstitute The Age Independence Committee to ensure that the Charter would be honoured by any new proprietor.
In cooperation with the Sydney-based Friends of Fairfax, the Independence Committee vowed to resist any ownership hostile to the Charter, sought assurances from the emergent bidders and lobbied the Federal Government. Our campaign again won influential public support, including public meetings that brought together two former Prime Ministers and political opponents, Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, in support of editorial independence and media diversity.
The campaign may have helped to persuade Kerry Packer to withdraw from the Tourang bid headed by Conrad Black , but could not prevent Tourang from winning control of Fairfax in December 1991. Mr Black, who had been scornful of the very idea of editorial independence realised that he would have serious problems if he rejected the existing Charter. He asked the company chairman, Sir Zelman Cowen to renegotiate the documents.
Sir Zelman sat down with representatives of the Independence Committee to revise the Charter. He declared support for its principles and suggested some changes that the board, management, editor and staff be bound to uphold the AJA code of ethics and principles declared by the Australian Press Council which we were happy to accept.
The new Charter, which became the model for a similarly revised Charter for the Fairfax publications in Sydney was formally adopted by the Fairfax board in March 1992. It was signed by Sir Zelman Cowen as Chairman, the managing director Greg Taylor, the editors of The Age and The Sunday Age, and by members of the Independence Committee.
Subsequent chief executives and editors have upheld the Charter and no breaches or disputes have disturbed its observance.
The Independence Committee was reconvened in 1997 and again in 2005 due to uncertainty and serious concern about new media laws the Federal Government is proposing.