Chris Masters to talk in Umina
Veteran investigative journalist Chris Masters will visit Umina on January 24 to talk about his new book Uncommon Soldier.
The talk will be held at the Gospel Garden Ministry at 207 West St, from 7pm.
Talk organiser Ms Mandi McIntosh said that, in his new book, Chris Masters turned his gaze on the modern Australian soldier.
"Moving away from our ongoing fascination with the Anzac story, he looks at the rich and illuminating present to write a character study of the modern Australian soldier - war fighter, peacekeeper, street-level diplomat and aid worker.
"Having been taken into their ranks in a way rarely before afforded an outsider, Masters gives heart and shape to the contemporary digger: how they are selected, how they are led, and how they are transformed from civilians to disciplined professional soldiers."
Chris Masters is Australia's best-known investigative reporter.
Ms McIntosh, who operates Book Bazaar in Umina, provided the following biography of Chris Masters:
Chris Masters worked at Australia's longest running public affairs television program, Four Corners between 1983 and 2010.
He made over 100 reports for the national broadcaster's flagship program, many of them well remembered and some of them nation shaping.
The Big League in 1983 triggered the Street Royal Commission and reforms to judicial accountability.
French Connections in 1985, an international exclusive on the sinking of the Greenpeace flagship The Rainbow Warrior earned Chris the highest award in Australian journalism, the Gold Walkley.
His most famous report The Moonlight State investigating police corruption in Queensland initiated the Fitzgerald Inquiry and a raft of reforms that reached beyond Queensland.
The Dead Heart received a 1987 Penguin award from the television Society of Australia.
Other reports such as Inside a Holocaust on genocide in Rwanda in 1994 won a Logie award and The Coward's War on the Bosnian conflict, a further Walkley.
Chris has written four books.
The first was Inside Story (1991) followed by Not for Publication (2002) and Jonestown (2006), the latter winning three awards, including Biography of the Year.
Chris is from a well-known media family, his mother Olga (1919-1986), a lifelong journalist and successful author.
In 1999, Chris was awarded a public service medal for his anti-corruption work. In 2005 he received an honorary doctorate in communication from RMIT University.
A further honorary doctorate was awarded in 2009 by the University of Queensland where Chris is an adjunct professor.
He has written for a range of major newspapers and journals.
Mission Drift, for The Monthly, on the Afghanistan conflict was reprinted in Melbourne University Press''Best Political Writing 2008.
Moonlight Reflections, an account of corruption in the Bjelke-Petersen government for Griffith Review, was included in Best Political Writing 2009.
Chris also teaches investigative journalism and film writing and is a regular public speaker, having delivered among others, the AN Smith lecture and the Curtin address.
In 2006 he received the Voltaire award from Free Speech Victoria.
In 2010 he delivered the Manning Clark address. Chris Masters is a national director of Redkite, which provides support to families of children and young people with cancer.
His documentary journalism is featured in an exhibition, Screen Worlds at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Federation Square Melbourne www.acmi.net.au/screen_worlds.aspx
In 2010, he completed a two part series on the Afghanistan conflict A Careful War, which was broadcast on Four Corners in July.
An account of the program and the mission was delivered at The Lowy Institute. Watch video here.
Tour of Duty, broadcast by Network Ten in 2011, was an up close account of the operations of Australian Special Forces in Afghanistan.
In 201,2 Chris chaired the non-fiction and history categories of the Prime Minister's Literary Awards.
He is the author and presenter of a three part history documentary series The Years That Made Us, due for broadcast by ABC television in 2013.
Tickets for Chris Masters' talk will cost $10. For bookings, phone 4342 2482.
Online submission, 4 Jan 2013
Mandi McIntosh, Book Bazaar