Your Girl Reporter Maria Spackman
Maria Spackman is a journalist with experience in Hong Kong, Britain, Australia and, in an unexpected twist, Hong Kong again. In 2018 she left the exciting world of media relations with the Queensland Government’s wildlife management team – be CrocWise everyone! – for a quieter life at the South China Morning Post.
In her spare time, she’s Your Girl Reporter, covering the past, present and future of journalism and anything else that takes her fancy. As she’ll tell you, it’s mostly fun.
Maria grew up in Hong Kong, the eldest child of two Australian journalists who accidentally washed up in the former British colony in 1967, just before the rioting started.
During their 20 years in Hong Kong, Jack and Margaret Spackman worked tirelessly to improve the conditions of local journalists and to advocate for a fair go for the city’s rapidly growing population.
And they loved to entertain. Maria grew up in distinguished company. Guests at the Spackman residence in Hong Kong included some of the finest journalists of the age: Richard Hughes, Donald Wise, Tony Lawrence, Larry Burrows, Francis James, Michael O’Neill, Kate Webb, Hugh van Es, John Pilger, and many more.
In spite of her upbringing, Maria turned accidentally to journalism. She was helping out her Dad for a few months on his computer magazine when he was hospitalised a week before deadline. The next issue of Computer-Asia was not its finest edition, but the experience of producing it lit a fire in Your Young Girl Reporter that has never been extinguished.
She stayed with Computer-Asia for the next five years. When the magazine was purchased by the Hong Kong arm of Australia’s Syme group, Maria became Production Editor for all of its local publications, including Media, Asian Broadcasting and Micro-Asia.
Production Editor, Syme Media Enterprises (Hong Kong) Ltd. Back when bad perms were fashionable.
Maria next served in local newspapers in the UK – working on the Hastings Observer and on the Eastbourne Herald, as a business journalist, before returning to the world of magazine publishing as Editor of Hotel.
In 2001 it was time to leave the UK and Maria brought her two daughters to Brisbane, Australia, ready for a new adventure. For the first time, she ventured away from journalism.
She tried out Student, Domestic Cleaner and Office Temp before moving on to set up the first electorate office for Queensland politician Kate Jones and going on to serve as her media adviser.
From there, it was a natural move into working for the Queensland Government’s environment department. It was a rare opportunity to combine her interest in Australia’s unique wildlife with her skills as a media specialist with a passion for high-pressure media management.
In 2012 Maria started a blog in her spare time, under the persona of Sally Baxter, Girl Reporter, based on a fictional character who appeared in a series of books that she enjoyed as a child.
It has grown in to a memoir of a city, a profession and a family, all living through the most interesting of times.
It is a strange twist of fate which brings her back to Hong Kong in similarly accidental circumstances, in times which bear such uncanny resemblance to 1967.
In February that year, Maria’s mother Margaret Spackman began her Hong Kong career as a court reporter for the South China Morning Post. In 1987, her father Jack Spackman ended his, as news editor for the Post’s Sunday edition.
Maria did not expect to return to journalism, let alone to follow in the family footsteps and work at the Post. She is still a former reporter, having traded in the notebook for a return to her first love, sub-editing.
She is currently a production editor on the Post’s China desk, where she can follow another subject of lifelong interest.
Shortly before the move to Hong Kong, Maria began the process of transferring the Sally Baxter adventures to this new website, under her own name, with every intention of retiring the intrepid Girl Reporter and her popular partner-in-crime The Walkley-winning Current Mr Baxter.
But, when it came to it, Maria found she lacked the necessary brutality for a lean management style and, instead, appointed her Editor-at-Large.
She prefers to consider it a small, respectful nod to Sally Baxter – from one Girl Reporter to another.
