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Four Corners – The First Program (1961)

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A future governor-general education content clip 1

Original classification rating: PG. This clip chosen to be PG

Clip description

The very first Four Corners opens with vox pops in a busy Sydney street, asking people whether a future governor-general should be British or Australian. The reporter is Bob Sanders.

Curator’s notes

by Janet Bell

This simply made but effective sequence, from the first episode of Four Corners, shows us why the program went on to be such a success. There is real intelligence and wit operating here – in the choice of subject and interviewees, in the editing (allowing people to go on when they are amusing or revealing) and execution – but allowing the material to speak, so the program does not seem to be pushing a point of view.

This is fascinating to watch because it’s very much a time capsule of Sydneysiders in the early 1960s: their accents, their clothing and their views. There are schoolboys in uniform, ladies in pearls, blokes from the bush and even a couple of 'new’ Australians – all asked to declare their preference for either a British or an Australian head of state. The result is almost overwhelmingly in favour of an Australian GG! The two new arrivals to Australia are the only ones to ask why we need a governor-general at all.

Bob Raymond was determined to have ordinary people’s voices on air. Until then, the voice of the presenter or reporter had to be what is called 'educated Australian’. To broadcast vox pops of people with the full range of Australian accents with insights that were funny and irreverent was a first for television in Australia.

Four Corners began in the graveyard shift on Saturdays at 10 pm. As the last transmission of the evening, they were given permission to overrun their allotted 45 minutes if necessary. With early successes, they were moved to 8.30 on Saturday nights where the program remained a fixture for many years. These days its initial broadcast is on Monday night.

It wasn’t long before Four Corners began to acquire a harder edge with the exposure of the horrific conditions on an Aboriginal reserve in New South Wales. Such things had never before been brought into the living rooms of middle Australia. Tough programs about public housing and the RSL soon established the program’s reputation for upsetting governments, the establishment and ABC management.

Teacher’s notes

provided by The Le@rning FederationEducation Services Australia

This black-and-white clip shows ‘vox pop’ interviews being conducted on the streets of Sydney in 1961. The clip opens with Four Corners reporter Bob Sanders posing the question ‘Do you think we should have an Australian or an English governor-general?’ This is followed by responses from 11 interviewees – five men, three women and three boys. Most were in favour of an Australian governor-general, apart from one boy who felt that the English knew better and one woman who was unwilling to say anything. Two men could not see the need for the office.

Educational value points

  • The clip shows the first vox pop interviews ever screened on Australian television’s longest running program, Four Corners. In 1961 there was little opportunity for ordinary people to express opinions about current events on radio or television. Talkback radio, for example, did not exist. A cameraman of the time recalled that here were ordinary ‘mums and dads’ in the street being asked what they thought, and they suddenly realised their opinions were valued.
  • Governor-generals were in the news in 1961 and their appointments reveal the ‘cultural cringe’ still within Australian society then, illustrated in the clip by the boy who believes the English are ‘better’. In February 1961 the Scottish-born Viscount Dunrossil (1893–1961) had died while in office. Prime minister Robert Menzies (1894–1978) believed the office required a prestigious British appointee and recommended English-born William Sidney, Viscount De L’Isle (1901–91).
  • The clip reveals several trends in the evolution of Australian identity in 1961. Many of those interviewed believed that only an Australian could understand Australians sufficiently well to be the Queen’s representative. Other opinions showed that the value of a ‘fair go’ was widely held, ie the belief that Australians should get a ‘chance’. Although two interviewees denied the need for a governor-general, most tended to see the office as an Australian, not British, institution.
  • The novelty of the vox pop on Australian television at the time is evident in the clip – the editing is rough and the reporter, Bob Sanders, does not ask many open-ended follow-up questions. The first producer of Four Corners, Bob Raymond (1922–2003), adopted the vox pop concept from British television of the late 1950s where it was a feature of Independent Television News and the British Broadcasting Commission’s program Panorama.
  • The term 'vox pop’ comes from the Latin 'vox populi’ meaning ‘the voice of the people’, and television and radio producers usually follow a set of unwritten rules about how ‘the people’ should be questioned and represented in a vox pop. The question asked, like the one here, should be unambiguous and invite a statement of opinion. The interviewees should be selected at random or in a way known to the audience so that they can be described as ‘representative’.
  • Vox pops from past decades serve as historical documents, giving a snapshot of the views and appearance of people of the time. This particular vox pop is unusual in the amount of time it gives to responses by children to an ‘adult’ question. It also gives considerable attention to the woman whose glasses make the only statement she is going to give. These spectacular glasses, in a style now worn only by Dame Edna, were fashionable in the early 1960s.