One of Victoria’s most experienced and senior editors has been appointed to the board of the state’s largest association of news publishers.
Garry Howe joins the Victorian Country Press Association board to fill a casual vacancy following the recent death of Country Press Australia and VCPA life member Bruce Ellen.
Mr Howe has been editor of the Pakenham-based Star News Group for 25 years, hitting that milestone in April this year, and now also oversees editorial operations in subsidiary companies Today News Group in Queensland and SA Today in South Australia.
VCPA chairman Jared Loughnan congratulated Mr Howe on his appointment and said the veteran editor had a broad range of skills and experiences to support the wider organisation and its members.
“Mr Howe enjoys the respect of industry colleagues across the nation as a journalist, editor and outstanding contributor to his community.
“In congratulating Garry, I also encourage eligible VCPA publishers to consider standing for election to the Board at our November AGM.”
He confirmed that while the VCPA constitution allows the Board to elect a member to fill a casual vacancy, the appointment must be ratified at the next AGM.
A working journalist for more than 40 years, Mr Howe remembers attending his first VCPA conference as a cadet reporter in the early 1980s and being inspired by an address by veteran Melbourne Herald investigative reporter Peter Game, who broke the story on the Khemlani loans affair that contributed to the downfall of the Whitlam Government.
He began his career as a first-year cadet at the Weekly Trading Guide at Sale and went on to work in Queensland for the Daily Mercury in Mackay and the Gold Coast Bulletin, before returning to Victoria as a sub-editor at the Latrobe Valley Express in 1992.
Mr Howe led a Gazette team that picked up a Melbourne Press Club Quill Award in 2003 for breaking a story on police illegally accessing the files of political candidate Kay Nesbitt and in 2020 received a Medal of the Order of Australia for services to the Cardinia Shire community. A devout family man, Mr Howe and wife Gaylene celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary later this year. They have three sons and now three grandchildren, with another on the way.
