Out & About, The Australian, 27 November, 2009.

I edited this column for several months at the end of 2009. It was a Murdoch idea he had first tried more than 20 years before. It didn't work back then, and with four different editions across the country, it was a nightmare.

I was taken off general news, not even my chief of staff was told what was happening, and it was a standing joke that one of their latest fiasco was to take one of their most experienced reporters off general news and give him an arts column.

I would get to work at 4 am and leave at 7 pm. I had never subbed anything in my life, but sub-editing everything in this column was suddenly part of my job, a specialised and finicky job.

All hell broke loose when I asked for overtime and Out & About was the precipitating factor in my leaving the The Australian. Under the stress of it all, and still with two kids to care for, I literally, medically, almost had a heart attack.

I had been a general news reporter for heading on to 30 years and I hated sitting under fluorescent lights editing other people's crap all day.

Management thought because I was different I was artistic.

It was a chronic, classic example of news Limited editorial mismanagement. Read between the lines. Their appalling style of management continues to this day.

 I had been in newspapers almost my entire adult life, and leaving was a very difficult experience. This is the column that did it. "Murdoch is watching," I was told, when given the job.

Huh!