It was the early 1990s, when newspapers were courting a relatively new demographic — liberated, working women — as readers. One way to attract sheilas, the male editors of these stodgy old journals of crime, sport and politics concluded, was to beef up the astrology section. Because, you know, women, huh?
This idea reached its apex when the Sydney tabloid I worked for decided to dedicate a whole page to astrological ramblings each day. Worse, the editor who made this decision also added to the layout, above the words for each star sign and its accompanying zodiac symbol, a headline that summarised this mindless drivel and supposedly grabbed the reader’s attention.
As a sub-editor for the section, I was occasionally given the job of making these astrological ambiguities fit on the page and write the headlines. I was deeply offended by this because (1) I’d become a journalist so I could report on actual events that had happened, not some airhead’s deliberately vague predictions of what might; and (2) headlines above such nonsense are impossible to write.
So I did what any self-respecting sub-editor/journalist would do. I started to rewrite the copy so I could come up with clever headlines for it.
These became more audacious as I went on, until eventually I was completely rewriting the horoscopes just for the fun of it, although I was smart enough to avoid any puns involving Uranus, which would have been too obvious and given the game away anyway.
My favourite of all these was one I did for the cancer zodiac. With more confidence than my rudimentary knowledge of the supposed virtues and flaws of cancerians should have allowed, I launched into an emphatic and persuasive lecture about how these people had been shamelessly avoiding their responsibilities and if they didn’t face up to the challenges of life soon they would suffer awful consequences.
All of which enabled me to write, above a little picture of a crab, the headline: “No more sidestepping the issue”.
It was, and still is, one of the highlights of my three-plus decades in journalism. But it might also have been my last.
The astrologer whose copy my newspaper was reproducing was one of the world’s most respected practitioners at the time, and was commissioned by dozens of publications around the world for his stupid trippy pronouncements.
He was paid eye-watering amounts of money, certainly enough to afford lawyers who could sue me into oblivion for having been so recklessness with his reputation.
One of my colleagues, when he realised what I was doing, shook his head in disbelief. He couldn’t believe the risk I was taking just to amuse myself with some headlines. This bloke knew where he stood in the newspaper pecking order. A mere journalist simply didn’t have any authority over astrologists in those days.
Journalists still find themselves subordinated to charlatans with whom they share no professional affinity. Instead of being independent fantasists, however, these contemporary charlatans are highly organised representatives of sinisterly powerful organisations like Big Pharma, Big Arms Manufacturers and Big Government.
Luckily, the astrologist, who I think lived in a penthouse on Fifth Avenue, never found out about my shenanigans in faraway Sydney. If only I’d known what his star sign was, I might have written him some advice about the rewards of being more diligent.
Anyway, for all I know, some (female) readers read my humble attempt at astrology and took it to heart. There is nothing wrong, really, with telling people that they should not shirk responsibility. There should be more of it, in fact.
Although this anecdote conveys the naivety and novice nature of newspapers back then, those were still better days for the profession.
In those days, the news sections of newspapers were run by editors whose primary concern was usually whether a story was true and balanced. These days, stories are chosen and twisted to fit a narrative.
That narrative can, alarmingly, even display a contempt for the publication’s own readers, as it did during the Covid lockdowns and vaccine rollouts.
Stupid astrology aside, I prefer the old journalism.
