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Harry Gordon (journalist)Henry Alfred Gordon, CMG, AM (9 November 1925 – 21 January 2015) was an Australian journalist, war correspondent, author, and historian of the Olympic Games. During his journalistic career, he served as editor of The Sun News-Pictorial, and editor-in-chief of The Herald and Weekly Times and Queensland Newspapers. From 1992 to 2015, he was the official historian of the Australian Olympic Committee. Early lifeGordon was born 9 November 1925 to Harry Gordon, a dockworker, and his wife, Marjorie.[1] As a child, he was taught to tap dance by his mother and to box by his father.[2] He was educated at Elwood Primary School and Melbourne High School, a selective all-boys school.[1][2] He was a high school middleweight boxing champion.[1] CareerJournalismGordon began his journalistic career as a teenager, working as a copyboy for The Daily Telegraph when he was 16.[3][4] He began working at The Sun News-Pictorial in 1949 as a general reporter.[1][5] In 1950, at the age of 24, he was sent abroad to cover the Korean War from the front-line.[6] In addition to his own newspaper, his war reports were published in the Adelaide Advertiser, The West Australian and The Courier-Mail. Shocked by the edits made to his reports by the United States' censorship teams, he developed a system of flying to Japan when he had a particularly good story, and dictating his report to a friend who would take a copy to the AAP-Reuters office in Tokyo for direct transmission to Australia; this avoided the reports being censored.[1] In 1968, he was appointed Editor of The Sun News-Pictorial.[5] He used his newspaper to head a campaign titled 'Declare War on 1034' to reduce car-related fatalities;[1] the number is a reference to the number of road deaths in Victoria in 1969. The campaign was successful and in 1970 the state government introduced a mandatory seatbelt law requiring car users to wear seatbelts; this was the first such law in the world.[3] He was Chairman of the Australian Associated Press in the 1980s.[7][8] Olympic GamesAs a journalist, he covered every Olympic Games between 1952 and 2012: his first Olympics being the Helsinki Games, and his last the London Games.[2] In 1992, he was appointed the official historian of the Australian Olympic Committee.[8] He wrote a history of Australia's participation in the Olympics. It was titled Australia and the Olympic Games and it was published in 1994.[4] In 2003, he authored The Time of Our Lives: Inside the Sydney Olympics : Australia and the Olympic Games 1994–2002 and in 2014 From Athens With Pride: The Official History of the Australian Olympic Movement, 1894 to 2014.[9] Gordon played a major role in the naming of streets around the 1956 Melbourne and 2000 Sydney Olympic precincts. The streets were named to honour significant Olympic athletes.[9] Later lifeHe was a member of the Australian Football Hall of Fame selection committee from 1996 to 2008.[10] He was hospitalised two weeks before his death because of respiratory issues.[5] He died in January 2015, aged 89.[6] Personal lifeGordon married Dorothy Scott in 1951. Together, they had three children; Sally, Michael and John, who all followed Harry into the media (Michael into journalism, John as a news and sports cameraman, and Sally as make-up artist for film and television). He remarried in 1993 to Joy Milner. He is survived by his three children, seven grandchildren and second wife. He was a supporter of Hawthorn Football Club. He wrote a history of the Australian Football club which was published in 1990.[10] Honours
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