50 years on, religious press association declares its innings closed

To the Gold Coast, for a sad/hopeful event as the Australasian Religious Press Association (ARPA) gathers for its 50th conference, which will be the last. The society of mostly print-based publications has decided to wind up – the number of church-based and independent Christian newspapers and magazines has dwindled.

It all began as a lobby group against a cost rise for subscription copies sent through Australia Post. There were successive rises in postal costs in the sixties and seventies, which led directly to the formation of ARPA as a lobby group in 1974.

Independent publications like On Being magazine, Church Scene and New Life, which represented very different views of the churches, came together in the lobbying.

David Busch, a Uniting church Minister who served as an ABC journalist before a call to ministry, recalled another hard-fought price rise while he served as an executive officer of ARPA: “1998 was the water sheed because the old registered publication paradigm, category A and category B publications, where category A was the concessional rate and religious publications and nonprofit publications were in that category along with returned services and rural publications were being replaced with print post.” But Australia Post was being corporatised, and ARPA lost that fight.

But the postal battles had brought the church and independent Christian publications together,

Several of the former presidents and executive officers of ARPA remembered it as the most harmonious and happy ecumenical organisation they had encountered. Lutheran Bob Wiebush, who engaged in ecumenical dialogues around the world, told the gathering that ARPA was the best ecumenical effort he had ever encountered.

That’s likely because the mix of journalists who found a ministry and ministers who found journalism in their various religious publications liked each other. Catholic to Church of Christ to Charismatic or Pentecostal to Presbyterian – ARPA welcomed and nurtured everyone, spurring them on to excellence with an awards night that, at its peak, attracted hundreds of entries.

Major Peter McGuigan, now serving for the Salvation Army in Sri Lanka, recounted the encouragement he felt when he first encountered ARPA. “I first attended the conference in 1997 when it was held in Hobart. At that time I was editor of the Salvation Army Australian War Cry, then a 12-page weekly tabloid newspaper with a print run of over 30,000 copies. In fact, I recall our team prided itself on being and talking about being the largest selling Christian weekly newspaper in the country. We were in the throws of moving from the old paste up method to pagemaker and in the wind for plans to go to a magazine style. But that year the War Cry was awarded in the most improved newspaper publication category at the annual dinner…” In true ARPA style, McGuigan, as president, went on to encourage others.

“ARPA’s membership grew in those times, and at the time I was president, entries for the organization’s annual awards for some of the categories, such as best feature, tracked upwards of 50 entries. So winning an ARPA award was no easy feat. In fact, to be a winner or to be a runner-up in an award category, was quite something.”

This writer recalls judging the design awards while Fairfax Art director. There certainly were fifty entries, maybe more.

McGuigan recalls a 2009 membership of 174 publications from 79 publishers as well as individual members.

Allan Sauer and Elizabeth Harris, the more recent executive officers, told us that their offices were covered in parcels during award season. Sauer said the local post office became concerned for his finances because he received and sent out so many parcels – members’ entries in and bundles to award judges out. Harris was relieved when the judging process went online. She told a story of the togetherness APA engendered. As she was ordained deacon in her Anglican Diocese of Willochra – “most people dont know where that is,” she said, not explaining, but The Other Cheek knows it is the northern part of South Australia – she looked up and saw a familiar face. “That can’t be Mark Brolly (ARPA board member and staffer on The Melbourne Anglican),” she said to herself, “Mark Brolly lives in Melbourne.” But it was. Brolly bearing a stole as a gift from ARPA.

ARPA helped members toiling on many papers, often alone or nearly alone, overcome forms of isolation that were not only geographical. When Melbourne’s Catholic newspaper, The Advocate, was suddenly shut down by the church hierarchy, it was fellow ARPA members who comforted the editor, Peter Philp. In other cases, it was common for bishops and other church leaders to seek to turn a paper into a promotional pamphlet. ARPA could not overcome this, but members supported each other in their times of trial.

At a solemn AGM, a motion to wind up ARPA was passed, and a final financial report was accepted. Outgoing – and final – President Sophia Sinclair read the “A time for” passage from Ecclesiastes. There was a time to speak and a time to be silent. She led us in prayer of thanks for all the collegiality and friendship that came through ARPA and the shared voices and stories in ARPA publications. “We thank you for the way you have worked through our organisation … show us the new things we should be doing, the new things you want us to do.”

The prestigious Gutenberg Award was presented to long-serving ARPA Treasurer Allan Sauer OAM by ARPA president Sophia Sinclair to a standing ovation of ARPA members aware of his diligent service to religious journalism.

Media typically has lots of launches and closures. ARPA’s fifty years have been dignified innings, and on the Gold Coast, we gave it a decent closure.

Image: A valuable resource, Australasian Religious Press Association directories kept members in contact with advertising details and other useful info.