My father Simon Townsend died on 14 January 2025, aged 79. He left behind five decades of journalism, a children's television show that shaped a generation, a conscientious objector case that reshaped Australian law, and hundreds of practical factsheets he used to teach the craft to young journalists.

This site exists to preserve that teaching. It is a tribute, built by me, Mike Townsend, Simon's son. The writing here is his. The site framing, the editorial additions on a small number of flagship pages, and the occasional factual update are mine. Where I have added material that is not his original writing, I have labelled it clearly.

What you will find here

Hundreds of articles on the craft of journalism, covering everything from apostrophes to freelance rates, pitching editors, interviewing children, and the ethics of chequebook journalism. There are 17 longer flagship pieces that I wrote in his voice to fill gaps in the archive. There is a biography of Simon, the Wonder World hub, and a section of reading paths depending on where you are in the trade.

Who Simon was

Simon started at sixteen as a cadet on the Central Coast Express in Gosford. He gave himself a column called Teen Topics and was cocky enough to begin writing a textbook for other journalists in his third year on the job. The rest of his early career was the regional NSW circuit: the Tamworth Leader, the Maitland Mercury, the West Wyalong Advocate. The Sun picked him up in Sydney at nineteen.

In 1968 he was jailed for refusing Vietnam conscription. His application for conscientious objector status was granted on 14 June 1968 after months of detention, a court martial, and "Free Townsend" protests in Sydney. The case reshaped Australian law on conscience.

By the early 1970s he was sub-editing the children's pages of The Weekend Australian, founding a children's newspaper called Zoot, and reporting on ABC's This Day Tonight. He moved to Nine for Mike Willesee's A Current Affair. He produced the John Laws Morning Show on 2UW. He did a spell at McGraw-Hill in New York. Later in his career he was a news producer for CNN during the Sydney 2000 Olympics, a United Nations correspondent, a radio producer at 2GB, and a tutor at the Australian College of Journalism.

In 1979 he created Simon Townsend's Wonder World! on Network Ten. It ran for 1,961 episodes over eight years, won five Logies plus a Prime Minister's commendation for the 1000th episode, and produced the first INXS music video. Across the show's run he hired 17 reporters and ran 8,000 stories. He had one rule for his staff: never talk down to children.

The factsheets on this site are what he did with the rest of his life: teach the craft to people younger than him, one query at a time. Full story on the biography page.

Why this exists

My father spent the last decades of his working life teaching journalism by email. Writers would send him queries and he would reply with a factsheet. Hundreds of them. They were never collected, never published, never indexed. When he died I found them scattered across old hard drives and email folders. It seemed wrong to let them disappear.

So here they are. Rough in places. Very much of their time in others. His voice throughout. He would have hated any version of this that tidied him up. I have resisted the urge.

Credits

Photographs courtesy of the State Library of NSW, the National Film and Sound Archive, and the Townsend family. Wonder World archive materials held by the NFSA in a dedicated curated collection. Video clips on the official YouTube channel.

Get in touch

If you worked with Simon, if you have memories to share, or if you spot an error on the site, please drop me a line. I am slowly collecting contributions from Wonder World reporters and former colleagues.

The editorial

Where I have written new material in Simon's voice (the 17 flagship pages listed in the sitemap under editorial additions), I have labelled it at the top of the article. Simon's original writing is not altered in prose. Mechanical cleanup only: double spaces, old course references, email-me-for-the-factsheet lines, that kind of thing. His voice, rhythm, emphasis and !!! are his.