Editorial Policy

[Mechanic]

Recently, Australian actor Simon Baker was voted the sexiest man on TV. When asked to what he attributed this , he replied "Lots of airbrushing." This reminded me of an airbrushing project at Fairfax.

Many newspapers have their editorial policy dictated by company management. Editors will be told what stories should or should not be given in-depth coverage etc. In general the Fairfax company managers did not interfere with an editor's decision on what should be published. However, forty years ago, this policy went out the window when the Chairman of the Fairfax board picked up a copy of "The Sun", a Fairfax tabloid, and lo and behold the page three girl was wearing a bikini that revealed her navel. He immediately contacted the Sun Editor told him to remove the offending photo. After some discussion the editor agreed to have the navel airbrushed out. This policy continued, belly buttons must go, until some time later, a prize winning bull was photographed for  publication. No, you couldn't see his belly button, but you could see a magnificent pair of testicles. The photo editor, in his wisdom, decided that if navels were offensive to the Chairman, these testicles certainly would be.

Now, I can't remember if the bull belonged  to the Chairman or a close friend, but it would appear that when The Sun landed on the chairman's desk with the photo of a bull "sans testicles" the chairman was not impressed. The next edition of The Sun contained a photo of the bull in all his glory and a page three girl with no belly button.

When The Sun was closed down, on March 14, 1988, page 3 girls had their belly buttons back.

[Dave Hughes]

Nice story George.

I recall visiting Malta, in the Mediterranean in the 1970s, a holiday destination very popular with Brits.

They imported British newspapers, but the Sun's page three girls were manually censored by someone using a black wax crayon width-ways!