John Stapleton

The first money Australian journalist John Stapleton (born 21 June, 1952) ever made out of writing was in 1974 when he was co-winner of a short story competition held by what was then Australia's leading cultural celebration, the Adelaide Arts Festival.

He graduated from Macquarie University in 1975 with a double major in philosophy and did post-graduate work with the Sociology Department at Flinders University.

As a freelance journalist in the 1970s and 1980s, while alternating between living in Sydney and London, his articles and fiction appeared in a wide range of magazines, newspapers and anthologies, including the now defunct Bulletin and The Australian Financial Review.

John Stapleton worked on the then esteemed newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald as a staff news reporter between 1986 and 1994. The paper was then listed as one of the Top 20 newspapers in the world.

He worked for the national newspaper The Australian from 1994 to 2009.

His books include: Thailand: Deadly Destination, Terror in Australia: Workers' Paradise Lost, Chaos at the Crossroads: Family Law Reform in Australia, Hunting the Famous, The Twilight Soi, The Final Days of Alastair Nicholson: Chief Justice Family Court of Australia and Hideout in the Apocalypse.

Hunting the Famous is a meditation on journalism and writing which spans more than 40 years, form the late 1960s until 2010.

Prior to becoming a staff reporter Stapleton's unlikely promise to himself to live or die by the typewriter led to a string of encounters with some of the world's most famous authors, including Gore Vidal, Dirk Bogarde, Paul Bowles, Joseph Heller, Al Alvarez, Anthony Burgess, Norman Mailer, Fay Weldon and Salman Rushdie. Hunting the Famous also includes affectionate portraits of Australian writers such as author David Malouf, poet Vicki Viidikas and hard drinking journalistic legends such as Jack Darmody and Joe Glascott.

As a news reporter Stapleton encountered and wrote stories about everyone from street alcoholics to Australian Prime Ministers, including Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. He covered many hundreds of stories, from the staple flood, drought, fire and natural disasters of the Australian bush to scenes of urban dysfunction in inner Sydney. Hunting the Famous covers a period of profound change within newspapers as the Information Revolution transformed the nature of the profession.

Thailand: Deadly Destination, an expose of the tourist safety in the so-called Land of Smiles, received widespread coverage. It was particularly controversial within Thailand, where it was banned.

The pamphlet Agent Orange: The Cleanup Begins, documents the efforts to rid Vietnam of the legacy of the accidental byproduct of Agent Orange, dioxin, a key factor in the high levels of disability the country suffered after the Vietnam War.

In 2000 John Stapleton became co-founder of the world's longest running radio program on father's issues, Dads on the Air. He worked as a volunteer on the program between 2000 and 2010. His interviews with leading figures in the fatherhood and gender equality movement, including Stephen Baskerville, Warren Farrell, Erin Pizzey and the organisers of Fathers4Justice can be found in the archives section of the program: http://www.dadsontheair.com.au/

After leaving The Australian John Stapleton established the niche publishing company A Sense of Place Publishing. Books published by the company include Travels with My Hat: A Lifetime on the Road by Christine Osborne, America's Destruction of Iraq by Michael O'Brien and Bloody Colonials by Stafford Sanders.

He continues to write as a contributor for the news site The New Daily.

A collection of John Stapleton's journalism can be found here:

http://thejournalismofjohnstapleton.blogspot.com.au/

John Stapleton is the proud father of medical student Sam Stapleton and law graduate Henrietta Stapleton.