Brian Johns Lecture 2022 – Macquarie’s Centre for Media History

The Brian Johns Lecture is presented by the Centre for Media History and generously supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

Centre for Media History – Macquarie University

Presented by figures at the forefront of the Australian Media, the lectures track key moments in our country’s media history.

Stan Grant will be presenting this year’s Brian Johns lecture, ‘Faith in Troubled Times’. This will be on 31 May, 6-8.30pm at the State Library of NSW. 

‘The Brian Johns Lecture was established by the Centre for Media History and the Copyright Agency to honour Brian Johns AO (1936-2016). Brian Johns made a lifelong commitment to Australia’s arts, literature and culture, and was an industry leader in publishing, broadcasting, digital media and the visual arts. Among his many roles, he served as publishing director of Penguin Australia, Managing Director of the ABC, CEO of SBS, and as a Director and then Chair of the Copyright Agency.’

Previous lectures:

2015: Mark Scott AO, Managing Director of the ABC, on ‘The Future of the Australian Story’. Click here to watch the lecture.

2016: Professor Julianne Schultz AM, founding editor of Griffith Review and Chair of the Australian Film, Television and Radio School, on ‘Cultural Institutions and Ideas of Australia in the Age of Fang’. Click here to listen to the lecture.

2017: Amanda Wilson, journalist, communications professional and the first woman appointed Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald on “How the internet killed my business model: Saving news that matters in a time of information overload”. Click here to watch the lecture.

2018: Morry Schwartz AM, esteemed book and journal publisher and founder of Schwartz Media Group, on ‘Slow News: Thinking in Public’. Click here to watch the lecture.

2019: Katrina Sedgwick, Director and CEO of the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, ACMI in Melbourne, on ‘Breaking Down the Silos – Creativity in the Digital Age’. Click here for the transcript of the lecture.