The Great War is often seen as a pivotal event in the establishment of Australia’s identity, and certainly Australia’s contribution was significant. Many battles have achieved almost mythic status. But at the time, for people who relied on country newspapers for news of the war the whole affair was somewhat underwhelming, with the battles that would become part of the Australian legend dismissed in a couple of perfunctory lines.
Benjamin Thorn examines and contrasts the reporting of the war in metropolitan and country press. Where metropolitan papers had myth making correspondents, the country press relied on the digests of the wire services which meant that country people had a vastly different view of the war than their metropolitan counterparts. It proposes that there have been several layers of myth making about the war: the myth of the ANZACs and the myth of how that myth was embraced.
Benjamin Thorn is the curator of the Museum of Printing at the New England Regional Art Museum in Armidale. He has recently completed a book on the Australian Printing Industry in the 20th Century based on 8 years of oral history interviews. He also lectures in creative arts education and music at the University of New England, and is music editor of Orpheus Music. An internationally regarded composer his music is performed around the world and has been published in Germany, Canada and the USA as well as Australia.
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