When I was a little boy discovering the world of words I often used to wonder where the news came from. It puzzled me that my family never featured in the news. Our photographs never appeared in the newspaper. News was something that happened to other people.
My father had been to school with the local state MP but that was about the extent of our links with what I began to perceive as another world out there, a world where certain things were deemed worthy of retelling.
An awakening of sorts came when my photograph appeared in the local newspaper the day after I commenced secondary school. It was a new school and I was a foundation student. A photographer appeared in our classroom and the teacher, Mr. Berndt, hovered over my shoulder pretending to correct my work as the photographer framed his shot. For days I delighted in telling everyone that the page we pored over was blank. I’d had my first direct experience of a manufactured media non-event.