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Radio days

Talkback radio host and Monash graduate Jon Faine is one of Australia's most influential media commentators. He spoke to journalism student SIMON DE BRUYN about life in the media hot seat.

Jon Faine's provocative and probing interview style has its roots in the political crucible that was Monash University's Clayton campus in the 1970s.

As a young undergraduate student, Faine studied with the likes of Federal Treasurer Peter Costello, Victorian Health Minister John Thwaites, former state MP Mark Birrell and former Liberal Party powerbroker Michael Kroger.

"It was a fascinating, interesting time," he recalls. "Whether or not there was something in the water I don't know, but there were a lot of people there who are now involved in Australian politics and public life in different ways."

Choosing Monash University to undertake his studies seemed inevitable. His father was a professor of microbiology there, and one of his sisters completed an arts degree at Monash, as did his mother. "We were a very Monash family," he says.

So much so that after graduating, Faine returned to Monash to teach final-year law students who were undertaking work experience at the Springvale Legal Service.

Faine graduated with an arts/law degree in 1981 and began his career as a solicitor at legal firm Barker Harty and then at Holding Redlich in Melbourne.

After four years, he left to pursue legal aid work at the Fitzroy Legal Service, occasionally commenting on legal and law reform issues in the newspaper and on radio.

"I really enjoyed the media commentary I was doing then," he recalls, "but never for a minute did I think of working in the media. That was until the then host of Radio National's Law Report, Tom Molomby, announced he was leaving the program and suggested I apply for the job."

Faine presented and produced the 'Law Report' and programs at radio 3LO before crossing over into television, where he worked on the ABC's 'The Investigators'.

He returned to the airwaves in 1996, hosting his own talkback program on 774 ABC Melbourne. Currently, his program, 'Mornings with Jon Faine', can be heard each weekday in Melbourne from 8.30 am until midday.

Faine believes his experience as a solicitor taught him tremendous discipline that has benefited his radio career. "Whether you're interviewing a client or cross-examining a witness, the interviewing process is about controlling the exchange and extracting what you want from the person you're interviewing," he says. "It's the same with radio."

Such control is necessary in talkback radio, the forum where immediacy is paramount and, as Faine suggests, enervating.

"It's not just a job - it intrudes too much into the rest of my life, is extremely rigid and leaves me in a state of perpetual semi-exhaustion."

Faine says he finds the power of his role "a little scary". "But the constant interaction I have with my audience is a daily reminder of my need to be balanced. What people are talking about is what we should be talking about."

Despite the demanding nature of talkback radio, Faine believes that its democratic nature is extremely rewarding. "It's a forum for something I call 'the contest of ideas', and there aren't many places where the community can engage in that," he says.

"Where anybody is able to put up an idea and have it submitted to scrutiny, that's incredibly democratic, and if that's part of maintaining our society and what we cherish about it, then that's a great privilege. It really is a wonderful thing."

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