Alan Parkhouse is one of the most respected senior journalists in the region. Fellow writer Scott Murray recently caught up with ‘Parkie’ to talk about his many experiences in a long and eventful career.
Alan was born in Brisbane, Australia, in 1954. He grew up in Grafton, a town of about 30,000, in northern New South Wales. He left Grafton High School at 15 to start an apprenticeship as a hand and machine compositor, or hot metal printer, at the Daily Examiner, Grafton’s local newspaper since 1859. Later, he went on to the Sydney Graphic Arts College as part of his apprenticeship.
Otherwise, he studied at the school of hard knocks. Alan switched to journalism in the 1980s and became the editor of two suburban papers in Sydney before moving to the bigger national dailies. He has worked in newspapers in Australia, Thailand, England, Cambodia and Hong Kong. As well as the two suburban newspapers in Sydney, and he has been the editor-in-chief of The Phnom Penh Post and Khmer Times in Cambodia and the acting editor of the Sunday Bangkok Post roughly 10 times while the editor was on holidays.