Vale Julie Copeland, a pioneering ABC Radio National broadcaster and mentor
“We stand on the shoulders of giants” is an oft-repeated saying among blackfellas.
It’s been repeated around the ABC in recent days following the news of the death of long-serving Radio National presenter Julie Copeland who, over the course of a long and distinguished career in the Australian media, became an institution in arts coverage.
As well as being a much-loved presence on air across a range of RN programs, Julie is being remembered as a respected colleague, treasured friend, mentor and teacher.
When I first joined Radio National in 1997, hers was one of the names among her generation of senior broadcasters that had that otherworldly ring — as if it belonged to a force of nature, not a mere human.
I’m embarrassed to say that I only ‘knew’ Julie Copeland as a listener. But it’s as a listener that I heard what the audience heard. In her sparkling but unaffected voice and lively, wide-ranging interviews, we heard her passion for her subject (whatever it was), the way she established rapport without fawning insincerity, the true inquisitiveness, and apparent lack of snobbery. What is even more surprising is that Julie’s expert knowledge of the liberal arts was acquired the hard way: she was a voracious reader.
It is an unacknowledged art to draw a person out in a radio interview — and Julie Copeland was a master practitioner of the craft. She also had unfettered access to senior figures in the arts, many of whom would have passed if anybody else were holding the mic.
As current presenter of The Art Show and Arts in 30, I owe Julie a debt of gratitude and acknowledge her for the profound legacy she leaves as an arts journalist and communicator. This short account of her professional life was a team effort, and I’m grateful to the many current and former colleagues who shared their recollections.
A distinguished career
Julie began her working life at Melbourne radio station 3AW, where she is said to have ruffled the feathers of the establishment. Later, there was a stint on a television news program during which she was tapped to interview the Libyan dictator, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. Her career at the national broadcaster began in the 1970s, including as a freelance contributor to the pioneering and influential women’s program, The Coming Out Show.
Copeland was passionate about arts and culture. (Supplied)
Her first on-staff presenting role on RN was as host of a literary program, First Edition, the first of many. She went on to host programs such as Arts National, Arts Talk and Sunday Morning Arts with Julie Copeland. In 1987, she established a new program that sought to pivot away from the media’s fixation with the Anglosphere. A weekly politics and culture program, The Europeans was expansive, ranging across the chaos of Italian politics, East German dissident writers and contemporary Greek philosophy.
What I know is that Julie Copeland was intrepid, the quality in a journalist that drives them to do just about anything to get the story, to ascertain the facts without inflicting harm. (To be fearless is to put too fine a point on it). But she was more than intrepid and her commitment to story was deep and unwavering.
Story is the core of what we do, not just the telling, but the caretaking. It’s a well-wrapped parcel that only you can deliver. She applied that pastoral care to every one of her interviews. And as an interviewer, Julie was prolific — she spoke to just about every Australian artist you care to name. Perhaps her greatest legacy is the public record she leaves in the extraordinary range and depth of the many hundreds of interviews she recorded in the field and live on air across her long career at the ABC. Our archive is one of the greatest assets we have as a cultural and record-making institution — and Julie Copeland is all over it.
I’ve observed that there are two kinds of journalist. It’s our job to know people. Some of us are misanthropes who search, in our journalism, to confirm the worst in human nature. The other half are unprejudiced, prepared to be surprised and actually like what they find.
Julie Copeland genuinely liked what she found in others, and — as a listener — she communicated that simple but beautiful reckoning to me and the rest of her audience.
Vale Julie Copeland.
