Sixth CEW Bean Memorial Lecture

Minders of Tuggeranong Homestead are proud to present the 6th CEW Bean Memorial Lecture, an annual event that honours CEW Bean's contribution to Australia's social and military history.

This year our lecture will be given by award-winning investigative journalist and war correspondent Chris Masters. His topic:

Has Australia lost its appetite for truth telling in journalism?

CEW Bean, the AWM and BRS VC, MG.

In this lecture Chris Masters, a disciple of CEW Bean and himself a modern-day battlefield correspondent, examines across a century, Australians' appetite for an honest understanding of the experience of war.

The danger of our overstating the virtue of the Anzac legend is no better exemplified than in the heroic status accorded Ben Roberts-Smith.

The Australian War Memorial played a key role in both honouring Roberts-Smith, the war hero, and defending Roberts-Smith, the accused war criminal.

Charles Bean, the author of the Official History and founder of the War Memorial, is often criticised for blinkered worship of the sainted digger. But would Bean, the war correspondent - the man Robert Menzies described as 'the greatest Australian of his generation' - whitewash war crimes?

The lecture will be introduced by former political correspondent and respected historian Peter Rees. Peter is the author of a number of books of military history including Anzac Girls and his biography of CEW Bean, Bearing Witness. Peter is currently researching and writing a book about Australian war correspondents.

After the lecture afternoon tea will be served with a chance to chat and mingle, and to support MOTH's work by purchasing home-made jams and local cards and books from a sales table (cash only please).