John Newfong

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John Newfong (3 November 1943 – 30 May 1999), Aboriginal Australian journalist and writer, was the first Aboriginal person to be employed as a journalist in the mainstream print media.

Newfong was born in Wynnum, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland, in 1943. His father Benjamin "Archie" Archibald Nu Fong was a Queensland champion heavyweight boxer, and his mother Edna Crouch played in the Australian women's cricket team which played England in 1935. Newfong's family soon moved to North Stradbroke Island, but when Newfong was five, the family returned to Wynnum where he attended the local school, and later, Wynnum High School. After graduating, he opted out of studying Law in Brisbane, instead he worked in Mt Isa as a miner in 1965 before returning to Brisbane to campaign for the 1967 Referendum. Later, he trained as a journalist at The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper in Sydney.

Newfong was campaign secretary for the Queensland Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, the state affiliate of Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI) in the leadup to the 1967 Aboriginal referendum. He had joined the Queensland council in 1961, and was soon promoted to the federal council. Soon after the referendum, he was offered a job at The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, and later worked at The Australian. In 1970, he was elected as the general secretary of FCAATSI.

In 1972, Newfong was made the "ambassador" for the Aboriginal Tent Embassy on the lawns of Old Parliament House in Canberra, where his media contacts and experience in the Canberra press corps were crucial in establishing a public image for the embassy. Although he resided at the embassy from February until July and was quoted in the Australian and overseas press, he is best remembered for his quote, "The Mission has come to town". Later that year, he continued to work as a journalist, between 1972-1973 and 1979-1980 he was editor of Identity, an indigenous Australian magazine funded by the Aboriginal Publications Foundation.

Later, Newfong was a founding member of the National Aboriginal Conference (NAC) in 1977, and was a member of its executive until 1979.

Newfong was the public relations director of the Aboriginal Medical Service in the Sydney suburb of Redfern. He also did public relations work for Channel Nine (Cyclone Tracey telephon), the Society for Crippled Children, National Aboriginal and Islander Health Organisation, and for the Aboriginal Development Commission. Writing in The Australian in 1986, Newfong defended Aboriginal legal services from attacks by the Australian Police Federation, who criticised government funding for those services. Newfong achieved a compromise between his position in the mainstream media, which often ignored indigenous issues, and his role in the indigenous rights movement, through his excellent writing and oratory skills, and his outspokenness on many issues. In 1993, Newfong was a lecturer at James Cook University in Townsville, where he taught journalism and media studies. The following year, Newfong was briefly Aboriginal policy officer for the Australian Medical Association in Canberra. He later worked as a speech writer for the NSW Government on Aboriginal issues. Until his death in 1999, Newfong lectured at various Australian universities on indigenous health and government relations.

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