Naked City special: A conversation with John Silvester

And that quick wit, I think, has opened some doors and maybe closed some others to you over the years.

But what it's allowed is you to really develop relationships and have face-to-face meetings with feared killers, underworld identities such as, you know, Carl Williams, Chopper Read, and they really continue to amaze us today.

And they really add, um, to your repertoire and your, your reporting ability when it comes to, um, talking about things in your Naked City podcast, but also now the Naked City TV series that for anybody who's living under a rock, it's on Channel Nine at the moment, and it's really amazing.

The third part, um, is being released tonight while we're here, but you can watch it on Nine now.

Um, but we, we really want to find out a little bit about not just underbelly, the underworld, but I think we've got quite a few RMIT students here tonight who may be interested in just how you got here in the first place, Sly.

How did you get into journalism? Where did it all begin?

Well, I think the students will probably end up vomiting in their mouths when they realize, um, it was a total fluke.

I was, uh, in the seventies, I was doing a double degree at La Trobe University and drinking beer and sleeping in.

Um, I was determined to do a master's in it, but sadly, my father, who was a police officer, kept annoying me by saying, "What do you wanna do?" And I sort of said, you know, "I, I want world peace and a few other things." But, um, eventually, I was at a particular function, um, and, uh, a good friend of my father was Mick Miller, became chief commissioner, and his wife, Beverly, said, "What do you intend to do?" And I honestly said, "I don't have a clue." And she said, "You should be a journalist because you've got an opinion on everything." Uh, and I thought, "That's a really good idea because I won't get the job, but it'll keep my old man off my back." So I wrote a letter to the Age, and it was, you know, ridiculous, saying, "I'm affording you the opportunity to take on the greatest potential journalist in the history of the universe" or something.

And The Age wrote back and said, "We're doing, um, an exam, um, that you can sit." And I wrote back and said, "I don't have time for your little test." Um, and, uh, I wrote to the Elmore Weekly Times, and I had the first interview with a fella and actually faked my way through it.

And then I got to the next, and there were three, uh, middle-aged men, um, smoking, and they were asking me sort of current affair questions, which I struggled with.

W- I remember one question was, "Who's the president of Egypt?" And I said, "What's that?" And they said, "You're right.

Sadat." So that was about the only one I got right.

[laughing]

Then one of them started talking about a policeman called Platfus, saying, "He's got the, the right idea with demonstrators." Now, I didn't know, uh, Platfus, who was an inspector, um, and a pretty robust man.

And there was the pressure because my old man was a copper to go, "Yeah." They were really putting that...

And I, and I'd fluked, uh, reading, um, rather than the bar bill, I'd, I'd read a student magazine which said Platfus had led a baton charge into students and said, "You'd get, you get baton today, you're gonna get more baton tomorrow." So I said, "Well, I'm not sure he did have the right idea," and I related that, and the bloke in the middle, a fella called Bill Howie, looked down, and on his blotter, he had the quote.

And he did the...

And I thought, "You buggers, you're setting me up.

Um, that's not a question you would ask anybody else." So I got on the balls of my feet, uh, a bit because I thought this was going really badly, and just got argumentative for the hell of it.

And the guy said he wanted to take the journalism, um, course out of RMIT and take it to Melbourne UniversityAnd I just said, "No, that's a pretty stupid idea.

Um, it's a craft and it should str- stay at RMIT." And in a patronizing way he said, "John, your attitude's typical of someone who's not in the workforce." [laughs] And I said, "Mr.

Hoey, your attitude's typical of someone who's never been to university." [laughs] "And I suspect never will." Now the bloke next to him covered himself in ash from his cigarette, and it took me 15 years to work out he was pissing himself laughing.

[laughs] Anyway, I walked out and I nearly said something rude, but I didn't.

And, um, but funny enough, once you fail it becomes important, and all of a sudden I thought, "Shit, I really would like that job." All right.