Summers began his first job in journalism at the Brisbane Courier (later Courier Mail), joining the Australian Journalists' Association on April 10, 1926 and remaining a member until his death. He moved from cadet to political journalist, then to chief-of-staff. He turned down the post of Secretary to the Premier of Queensland at one stage. During World War II, he reported on the New Guinea campaign for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Age, and later reported on the Phillipines war situation for the Times (London). After the war, Summers travelled throughout Asia reporting, and later freelanced. Between 1961 and 1965 he was the moderator of Round Table, a Brisbane based public affairs Channel 9 television programme. His work, both professionally and as the president (1932-33) of the Queensland branch of the Australian Journalists' Association, was recognised by the Federal Council with a Gold Honour Badge in 1961. In the late 1960s and 1970s, he turned to local history, writing several articles for the Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, interviewing and recording local resident's memories of Dutton Park (a Brisbane suburb) and writing the introduction to John McClurg's Historical Sketches of Brisbane (1975). In 1979 he published They Crossed the River: the Founding of the Mater Misericordiae Hospital, Brisbane, by the Sisters of Mercy.
