By Marc Moncrief
Age journalist
July 2005

Farouque is no stranger to tough assignments. She was present when protesters tore down fences at the Woomera detention centre in Easter 2002 and was sent to Bali in the wake of the Kuta bombings. She is also one of The Age’s most seasoned news reporters, having covered courts, royal tours, fatal bushfires and refugees in rural Victoria. She has also reported on state and federal politics, including moving to Canberra to work in the press gallery in Federal Parliament for nearly three years when Paul Keating was Prime Minister.

As social affairs editor, a job she has done for more than two years, Farouque brings flexibility, nerve and a wide experience to the notoriously broad brief. “Social affairs is about social policy, tracking social change and what’s happening to those who don’t have much access to power,” she says. “I lead a small team, social affairs reporter Liz Gooch works closely with me, and we cover areas such as child protection, ageing, homelessness and poverty,” Farouque says. “The area definitely has a ‘lighter’ side, exploring how we live. I really enjoy this job because it has a good blend of policy and people. I deal with academics, bureaucrats and ministers. But at the heart of my beat are people in the community, and they make some of the best stories.”

Farouque was born in Sri Lanka but it was a challenge to return to the country she’d only been back to for occasional holidays for a work assignment of the gravity of the Boxing Day tsunami. “I don’t speak any of the local languages, but the journalist’s everyday tools – observing, listening, asking loads of questions and being empathetic, of course, while keeping an eye on the deadline – served me well,” Farouque says. The devastation that nature had wrought did not leave Farouque unaffected. “I think it’s good as journalists to have those human emotions. You can’t be a machine and hope to write sensitively.”

So when she begins to speak about losing face on the job, one wonders what horror could have shaken a woman steely enough to report on the Bali bombings and the Boxing Day tsunami. Was it the sight of a broken body? Did the dust of some levelled city break through the barrier between the journalist and her subject? No. In the heat and sweat of her native Sri Lanka, it was an orphan who made Farouque cry. In an article which ran in The Age on January 8, Farouque introduced 21-year-old M. M. Firdous. His mother had just returned after working as a maid in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for more than 10 years. “Her efforts had finally paid dividends,” Farouque wrote. “The family had recently bought a sturdy house – but it was destroyed.” Firdous lost his mother to the water and was left in charge of his three siblings. His alcoholic father, Firdous said, was “no good”. “I just kept thinking, ‘imagine if I was in that situation’,” Farouque said. “And there he was, and he was happy to share that story.”

Her grit impressed Age photographer Jason South, who has photographed some of the world’s most troubled regions. “We were working 110 hours in one week. It was a very difficult trip.” At one point, the two separated and agreed to meet at a refugee camp in the north-east of Sri Lanka. En route, the driver of Farouque's van plunged into flood waters and bogged the vehicle. “We were so close to the deadline but she just got out of the van and managed to flag down a passing police vehicle and convinced them to take her towards me and the refugee camp,” South said. “She waded through the river so we would not miss our deadline.”

Farouque emigrated to Adelaide with her family in 1975, aged 7. In the mornings, she and her six siblings would race to be the first to get the newspaper. “I come from a family of news junkies. I think the 7am ABC news was the first thing that rang like an alarm through our household when growing up,” she says. She attended Adelaide University and studied law/arts. But the tutelage of legal history professor Alex Castles – who moonlighted as a journalist – turned Farouque’s interests towards a life of writing. She began with the Adelaide University paper, On Dit. After university, she worked for a year as judge's associate in the Supreme Court of South Australia.

She arrived as a cadet journalist at The Age in 1992. During the final interview, one of the editors asked why she would want to work as a reporter. “More than 10 years on, I probably have a more considered response,” Farouque says. “Being a reporter is a licence to be curious. There is definitely an adrenalin factor. I’ve done fun stuff like radio and TV reviews. I’ve met and interviewed a wide variety of people – from Pavarotti to prime ministers and premiers. I’ve also spoken to survivors of unspeakable tragedies, both here and overseas. “There’s a fraternity about being a reporter at The Age. I get to work with supportive colleagues such as Insight editor Gay Alcorn. There are real opportunities to influence the community I live in by reporting the stories that should be told and, hopefully, making a difference.”

* Farah Farouque is currently a senior writer