Compass – The Story So Far ... I was also certain that if one covered it from a noncommitted point of view but from an informed point of view it would be addressing the spiritual heart that was in all Australians. I was absolutely sure that was correct, was certain it would work. However, the first efforts in studio were pretty appalling. They didn’t come near the ideal but we struggled on and we all thought a new magazine format could do it.” Vaughan and COMPASS producer, Peter Kirkwood, then put together a proposal for a magazine program, assembling items that would have featured had it been going to air that month, thus giving it a degree of topicality.

COMPASS was launched on ABC TV on Sunday, 7 February 1988 with an hour-long studio-based program fronted by Angela Pearman. The premiere program featured religious news, interviews, debate, opinion pieces and a documentary item.

“I didn’t hear anything and kept struggling on with the studio based program which wasn’t all bad but the style and format were much less than we were capable of and it was on at a non prime-time slot, something like 12 noon on a Sunday.”

Despite the differences in format between today’s COMPASS programs and that first episode, the issues it raised – priestly celibacy, abortion, the environment, human rights and conflict in the Middle East – are as relevant today as they were back then.

In the meantime David Millikin had become head of religious radio and a short time after his appointment wrote an article for The Sydney Morning Herald attacking ABC Managing Director David Hill, questioning his ability and integrity. Vaughan arrived at work on Monday and there was a call from the MD demanding Vaughan and Millikin be in his office at 10am.

Each week COMPASS sets out to explore religion and life as they are experienced by individuals and communities - including ordinary Australians, public leaders, religious thinkers, ethicists and philosophers. COMPASS does not limit itself to exploration of religious institutions; it also aims to illustrate the liveliness of public debate encouraged by religious issues. COMPASS is a Sunday night television institution now, but how did it originate?

Hill gave both men a dressing down and dismissed them from his office, however as they walked out the MD roared “Come back Hinton!” He waved the submission that Vaughan had put in some time before, and said “I’ve read it. You can have it. It will be in your next budget”.

Vaughan Hinton, founding Executive Producer, takes up the story:

And so COMPASS was born.

“I had long been of the conviction that no sources in Australia treated religion in a way that was both serious and non-promotional or non evangelical. Newspapers rarely covered religion as news and met their responsibility in some way, as did the ABC, with Bible readings and ‘thoughts for the day’, outside broadcasts of services of worship and that was it. My thought was to provide something that anybody would be interested in, not just something for a minority audience. I was convinced that everybody could find religion interesting but people didn’t want to be sold it.

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Compass – The 1988 Premiere ...

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Compass – The Time Line ... January 7, 1988

COMPASS premieres as a studio based program hosted by Angela Pearman and featuring Paul Collins and John Cleary in front of camera. Behind the scenes are Executive Producer Vaughan Hinton, Producer Peter Dunn and Associate Producer Peter Kirkwood. COMPASS screens at midday on Sundays and aims to make religious affairs accessible to the general public. The first episode includes local and international religious news; as well as tackling the issues of human rights, the environment and celibacy issues among the Catholic clergy.

November 1989

With a distinguished career behind her as both a TV/radio journalist and presenter, Christina Koutsoukos takes over as host of COMPASS.

February 2, 1991

Host Christina Koutsoukos is joined by reporter Mark Warren. COMPASS moves to Sunday evenings at 10.30pm and shifts from the studio-based interview format to a series with full-time reporters. The format change significantly increases the program’s ability to take viewers closer to the vitality of issues of faith and belief. The audience share for COMPASS quadruples over the coming months.

March 15, 1992

COMPASS produces and broadcasts the controversial program The Ultimate Betrayal. This landmark program breaks new ground in highlighting the issue of clerical sexual abuse in Australia. Although the issue had been addressed overseas, this is the first program to suggest there could be a problem in Australia. The program triggers church outrage and a media frenzy. In the 40 hours following transmission, counselling centres in state capitals report 121 allegations of sexual assault by clergy and church leaders.

June, 27, 1993

COMPASS broadcasts Conduct Unbecoming, reporter Mark Warren’s follow up to the previous year’s program exploring clerical sexual abuse. The program commands significant media attention including a front page story in The Sunday Telegraph on the day of broadcast.

1994

Mark Warren leaves Compass to pursue a career in comedy and joins Elle McFeast on Live and Sweaty. Radio journalist and lawyer Richard Dinnen joins COMPASS.

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1995

Seasoned journalist David Ransom replaces Richard Dinnen as the COMPASS reporter and pursues stories ranging from the seriously theological, to pressing social and human rights issues, to the unveiling of cult figures. To promote a story on “Trekker” devotees he dons a Star Trek outfit.

March, 25, 1997

The Good Friday COMPASS special Stolen Children screens. This documentary examines the role of churches and missions in separating Aboriginal children from their families. Stolen Children attracts critical acclaim. The program graces library shelves in 68 tertiary institutions around the country.

October, 1997

Vaughan Hinton retires, with George Pugh appointed as the new Executive Producer.

December, 25, 1997 Christina Koutsoukos presents her final COMPASS program, a Christmas special featuring famed Australian cartoonist Michael Leunig. January 2, 1998

Acclaimed journalist and broadcaster Geraldine Doogue takes over as host of COMPASS, presenting a penetrating documentary on the challenges facing the Catholic Church in Australia in the wake of clerical abuse scandals.

1998

The magazine style format of COMPASS gives way to longer form documentaries.

September 18, 1998‘What our Leaders Believe’, Geraldine Doogue conducts in depth interviews with political leaders in the lead-up to the federal election, canvassing their views on the beliefs that shape their lives and attitudes. The program is very well received and the format is adopted for subsequent general elections. August 3, 1999

The COMPASS special Death of a Missionary screens. The documentary was recorded in India in the wake of the brutal slaying of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons.

2004

COMPASS Executive Producer, George Pugh retires. Subsequent Executive Producers have been: David Jowsey, Tim Clarke and most recently Rose Hesp.

October 14, 2007

COMPASS screens The Abbey. This three-part series follows the experiences of a group of women selected from nearly 1000 applicants to spend 33 days living with nuns in an enclosed order. The Series achieves the highest ratings ever for COMPASS with nearly a million viewers.

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Compass – The Presenters ... ANGELA PEARMAN Former ABC TV news reader Angela Pearman was the first host of COMPASS and remained in that role until late 1989. With three languages, a BA and Dip Ed from the University of Sydney, she’d been a high school teacher prior to her media career. After leaving COMPASS, Angela completed a law degree. She became a barrister in 1996 and has served as a councillor with the NSW Bar Association.

CHRISTINA KOUTSOUKOS With a distinguished background in radio and television news and current affairs, Christina joined the ABC TV Religion Unit in September 1989 as presenter and reporter on COMPASS. She left the show at the end of 1997 and is now lecturing in broadcast journalism at the University of Newcastle while pursuing postgraduate studies in religion and media. In 1982 Christina made radio history when she became the first woman newsreader for Triple M. She also worked for media outlets such as Radio 2GB, the Nine Network and SBS.

GERALDINE DOOGUE Geraldine Doogue, one of Australia’s most respected journalists, has been a reporter for the West Australian, The Australian, 2UE, Channel 10 and the ABC; presenter of ABC Radio National’s Life Matters, Sunday Profile and Saturday Extra; and host of ABC TV’s Nationwide and COMPASS. She played a major role in ABC TV’s coverage of the Gulf War, receiving a United Nations Media Peace Prize and two Penguin Awards. In 2000, Geraldine was awarded a Churchill Fellowship for social and cultural reporting. In 2003, she was made an Officer in the Order of Australia for distinguished service to the community and to the media on issues involving ethics, religion and social change. In recent years, Geraldine has taken a particular interest in the relationship between Islam and the Western world. In 2003 she co-produced the COMPASS program Tomorrow’s Islam with Peter Kirkwood, examining the ways in which Western Muslims have been seeking solutions for some of the most pressing issues in 21st century Islam. Geraldine and Peter published their book, Tomorrow’s Islam: Uniting Age-Old Beliefs and a Modern World (Sydney, ABC Books) in 2005.

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Compass – The People ... PAUL COLLINS Paul Collins is a broadcaster, writer and one of Australia’s foremost intellectuals and commentators on cultural and religious affairs. He was one of the original COMPASS team and has been a regular contributor over the years. A graduate of both Harvard and the Australian National University, he is the author of seven books, including his latest book; Believers: Does Australian Catholicism Have a Future?

JOHN CLEARY John Cleary is one of Australia’s best known commentators on religion. He is currently the presenter of the nationally broadcast, Sunday Night, on ABC Radio. He has been a producer and presenter of Religious radio and television programs since joining the ABC in 1980. These include; The Religion Report, and the philosophy program Meridian for Radio National. John was part of the original COMPASS team. For some years he was a regular commentator on religion with Angela Catterns on the youth network Triple J. In 1994, his book, Salvo!, on the Salvation Army in Australia, was awarded Australian Christian book of the year.

MARK WARREN Mark joined COMPASS after working at Channel Ten news as a roving reporter. Previously he was a radio presenter and journalist in country NSW and Newcastle where he worked as a journalist for NBN TV news. When asked about his time at COMPASS, Mark said; “Working on COMPASS was one of the most enjoyable, satisfying and stimulating jobs I have ever had in TV. Thanks to our wonderful Executive Producer Vaughan Hinton we were given a great deal of journalistic freedom to explore a whole range of issues and we were encouraged to tell people’s stories in ways that were engaging, moving and revealing. We had a lot of fun and the Compass family was one that is very special to me”. After COMPASS Mark went on to work as a presenter in ABC TV Comedy, a presenter/reporter with Channel Seven and with ABC Radio. He has just completed a law degree and is working in the community legal sector on social justice projects.

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RICHARD DINNEN Richard Dinnen was the ABC correspondent in Papua New Guinea from 1999 to 2001. Before that he was the ABC Pacific correspondent for three years. Richard’s media career began in 1983, when he was working as a radio dispatcher for a taxi company. A radio announcer moonlighting as a cab driver heard Richard on his two-way radio, and offered him a job as a traffic reporter on a Sydney radio station. Richard worked in commercial radio in NSW, before joining the ABC in 1989. He’s worked in news radio and current affairs in addition to his stint as COMPASS reporter. Richard is currently the Drive presenter on ABC Radio, Far North Queensland.

DAVID RANSOM David should have known from his initial discussions with then Executive Producer Vaughan Hinton that COMPASS would be a major chapter in his media life. He told Vaughan that he was an agnostic. Vaughan’s reply was “I think we can use one of those.” David came to COMPASS with a media background in newspapers, radio and television, having reported on all sorts of subjects from news and current affairs to consumer issues and human interest stories. His work took him all over Australia, to Papua New Guinea for five years, to Asia, Africa and, from 1987 to 1990 when he was an ABC correspondent based in London, to many European countries. In his time with COMPASS, David covered stories about ructions in the Anglican Church, abuse in the Catholic Church, Australian nuns assisting East Timorese refugees and the spiritual and emotional aspects of organ transplants. And true to Vaughan Hinton’s philosophy, Compass enabled David to delight in doing stories on subjects not normally considered religious but having spiritual qualities. David is still an agnostic but he appreciated the chance to ask the ‘big’ questions.

VAUGHAN HINTON Vaughan Hinton first worked for the ABC as a casual regional newsreader in Toowoomba, Queensland in 1950. He trained as a journalist and later worked for the Australian Council of Churches in Sydney, the World Council of Churches in Geneva, the community mental health organisation Grow and a variety of newspapers in Australia and overseas. Throughout his working life he freelanced extensively for ABC Radio and ABC TV variously as a Radio National producer and presenter, TV interviewer and researcher. In 1980 he joined the full time ABC staff with the Religious Department as a researcher and presenter. He became Executive Producer for Religious TV and initiated a variety of changes including the introduction of the program COMPASS, which he saw as a way of discussing spiritual and ethical issues in a manner accessible to viewers of any or no religious commitment.

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PETER KIRKWOOD Peter Kirkwood has a MA in theology from the Sydney College of Divinity. He joined the ABC in 1985, and during his twenty-three year career in television has mainly researched and produced documentaries on religion, including projects on all the major world faiths. In 1998 he took up a Churchill Fellowship to study documentary making and broadcasting on religion in the UK, Ireland, Canada and the US. He co-authored a book with Geraldine Doogue Tomorrow’s Islam: Uniting age-old beliefs and the modern World (ABC Books, 2005) with his most recent book The Quiet Revolution, The Emergence of Interfaith Consciousness being published in 2007 (ABC Books). Peter was one of the founding producers of COMPASS. He left ABC TV in 2008, to work on other projects.

GEORGE PUGH In a television career spanning fifty years George Pugh has worked with media organisations such as; Film Australia, BBC-TV London, and from 1974 to 2004 with ABC TV Sydney. In the course of his ABC career as a film editor, producer/director, and executive producer, George has been attached to units as diverse as Four Corners (1981-85), Young Peoples (1976-80), Religion (1980-81), TV Features (1986-87), and Arts & Entertainment (1987-1996). George was executive producer of programs such as the pop-culture magazine Flashez, the weekly 4-hour culture line-up Sunday Afternoon with Peter Ross, the arts magazine Review, and very many one-off documentary projects and outside broadcasts. In 1996 George assumed responsibility as the Executive Producer of Religion & Ethics TV and its flagship program COMPASS. George retired in 2004 and is currently writing his second novel.

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10 THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT COMPASS … 1. Over the last 21 years there has been a range of critical reviews for COMPASS including this review of the premiere episode: “On a wing and a prayer – in place of a budget – the ABC is ready to launch an unlikely but potentially interesting series focusing on religious news and current affairs.” Sydney Morning Herald / The Guide, February 1, 1988 However, this ‘potentially interesting series’ continued to thrive and on June 17, 1999 the Sydney Morning Herald ran the following headline: “HOLY TV! What’s This? A religious program scoring decent ratings?” Chris McGillion looks at the phenomenal success of ‘Compass’. 2. In June 2000 a COMPASS crew accompanying young pilgrims and religious leaders on a journey to the heart of Australia was nearing Woomera when 480 desperate detainees broke out of the detention centre and made their way to the township. COMPASS was on the spot to record first pictures of this event that made headline news around the country and helped raise public awareness of the plight of asylum seekers. 3. Current COMPASS host Geraldine Doogue has been described as the “thinking man’s sex symbol”. The girl who’d wanted to be a school teacher was lured by journalism and in 2000 her efforts were rewarded with a Churchill Fellowship for social and cultural reporting. She was proclaimed an Officer in the Order of Australia in 2003. 4. What do the Prime Minister of Australia and two former Prime Ministers, the President and Prime Minister of East Timor, a former Prime Minister of Great Britain, the Governor of NSW, a former Governor General of Australia, two former Premiers of Victoria and a former Premier of Western Australia share in common? ...Yes, they’ve all been on COMPASS. 5. In March 1992 COMPASS lifted the lid on clerical sexual abuse in this country with a searing report called The Ultimate Betrayal. It created a media frenzy. Whilst the US media had reported many horror stories involving clergy, this was the first program to suggest Australia had a serious problem too, with estimates that as many as 15% of clergy could be implicated. Fifteen months later, on 27 June 1993, COMPASS broadcast a follow up program Conduct Unbecoming which provoked front page headlines. 6. In 2006 when COMPASS host Geraldine Doogue sought volunteers to abandon busy lives, family and friends to join a religious order and live the life of contemplative nuns for 33 days, nearly a thousand women answered the call. With only five spots available, nine hundred and ninety odd were doomed to disappointment. The three-part series, The Abbey, went on to attract the largest audiences ever for COMPASS, which goes to show there’s quite an appetite for matters spiritual in Australia’s seemingly secular society. 7. Besides comedy, what do well known comics Joanna Lumley, Hung Le, Anthony Ackroyd, Akmal Saleh, James O’Loghlin, Tom Gleeson, Jackie Loeb and Tommy Dean have in common? They’ve all bared their souls on COMPASS.

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8. When confirmed atheist Professor Ian Plimer described in detail on COMPASS the kind of wake he’d want when he died, the publican of the Chillagoe Post Office Hotel in FNQ decided to oblige. He pulled out all stops to replicate exactly what the world famous geologist had ordered, right down to the galvanised iron coffin. On Plimer’s next visit to Chillagoe he was amazed to find the pub full of all his ringer, stockman, miner and prospector mates, all geared up to “send him off” in fine style. 9. After the tragic death of Australian missionary Graeme Staines and his two young sons at the hands of Hindu fundamentalists, COMPASS producer Peter Kirkwood journeyed to India to track the outpouring of sorrow from India’s religious leaders and record their multi-faith pilgrimage to extend condolences to Graeme’s widow, Gladys Staines. 10. Whilst COMPASS has routinely shot services and worship in mosques, monasteries, synagogues, temples, ashrams, churches and cathedrals, in a tribute to the program’s diversity intrepid COMPASS crews have also ventured into voodoo ceremonies, pagan gatherings, pubs, prisons, breweries, brothels, heroin injecting rooms, turtle hunts and UFO workshops.

abc.net.au/compass

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