ON AIR

Mike Carlton, William Heinemann, $49.99

With a few reservations I’d say you could hardly find a better guide than this to what’s happened to us in Oz over the past 55 years. In 1963 to be 16, male, and in possession of an ABC cadetship was to be on a stairway to heaven. That ABC cadetship led to a career that embraced print, radio, TV and, in later years, success as a naval historian. (I bet there were crimped lips when he, a gifted amateur, won the NSW Premier’s Award for Australian History.) Nothing compares to actually living in a country to shape a true perspective on where it is heading, and who’s doing the pushing. Carlton delivers soundly on Indonesia, Vietnam and the UK, where he spent time as a correspondent. However, when he speaks as an armchair pundit he’s less reliable; best to skip the pages on Gaza, which more relate to the lead-up to his retirement from Fairfax. Lest the dad to whom you give this treasure starts to feel wistful — for Carlton is the rogue male in full rig — there’s the downside of journalism in grisly detail. In his case, that’s Alan Jones, Rupert Murdoch, Tony Abbott and Stan Zemanek. Fortunately, retirement suits Carlton. There he is, at home on the Northern Beaches, more interested in his young son’s progress than in global journalism, which he says is doomed; après moi le déluge, the media drowning in money and lies.