'When The New Idea (now New Idea) hit newsstands in 1902 – the same year that Australian women gained the right to vote – it claimed that it ‘was a new departure in Australian journalism’. It would become the longest running, continuously published women’s magazine in Australia. William Shum was its first editor. Shum had a long journalistic career, working alongside Sir Keith Murdoch at The Herald and becoming editor of The Australian Home Beautiful in 1925. Histories of the Australian press have largely focused on the hard-news publications of the industry’s ‘paper emperors’; women’s and domestic magazines have largely been ignored, as has the work of those journalists who contributed to them. In introducing us to the life and work of William Shum, Sue Walker (who is Shum’s granddaughter) shines a light on one of these overlooked journalists and contributes to the growing historiography of the Australian media.' (Introduction)
