BULLETIN VIEW,

A LARGE turnout is expected at the funeral today of John Delaney Burton, who was editor of the Gold Coast Bulletin at a time when the city entered a golden age of boomtime development.

“Burto’’ worked on the Bulletin for 35 of his 47 years in journalism, 17 of them as editor until he retired on July 12, 1996.

He was at the helm of this daily newspaper as it led the Gold Coast community through the prosperous years of business and real estate growth, when the paper grew to six days a week.

And he was a good friend and staunch supporter of the Gold Coast during the hard times, when the local economy had to weather hits like the “recession we had to have” – as then-prime minister Paul Keating tried to argue – and the sad times when disaster struck, for example the Mt Tamborine bus crash in 1990 that killed 11 pensioners.

Sometimes tragedy was very close to home, when people on staff or who were family members of staff were lost in terrible circumstances.

The crash of a helicopter was one such occasion. The death of a young lifesaver at the Aussies was another. These were testing times for families and for the Bulletin, and for the editor in charge.

As a young reporter, John Burton had covered the demise of the railway track from Brisbane to “the South Coast”, as our Gold Coast was called in earlier days. The government of the day made a decision that backed trucking companies in shifting freight to our city, and promptly tore up the line in 1964. The city was furious and the Bulletin vowed to see the railway brought back. It took more than three decades, but the trains returned in 1996 – and John Burton was beaming, having honoured the pledge made to Gold Coasters.

In his career, Mr Burton covered floods, cyclones, royal tours and the city’s development boom. Before arriving in the city he covered some of the more notorious murders in Queensland, he was the first journalist to reach the crash site of an airliner that plunged into the sea off Mackay, and worked on a series that exposed a shares scam and led to changes to the state’s company laws.

He was a beacon in an industry that operates on strict deadlines, always friendly and always interested in his troops. Many who honed their craft in his newsroom still talk of his fatherly approach, when he would remind staff of the importance of words and accuracy. He would inquire about their assignments and ask how their families were.

Since his passing, people from all walks of life have contacted the Bulletin to talk about John Burton as a decent man, an understanding journalist and as someone who believed in the importance of family.

They have spoken of a kind and gentle man, a person with dignity, firm but fair – and certainly no pushover, as some in the wider world learned when they tried to take the paper on.

“Burto” was no mug. The runs on the board from his time in the editor’s chair were testament to that.

Circulation was strong and the paper, as it is now, was the leader in reporting and breaking Gold Coast news.

He is sadly missed.