Jim Bowditch

James "Jim" Bowditch, (1919–1996) was an Australian newspaper editor who worked for the Alice Springs-based Centralian Advocate from 1950 to 1954 and the Darwin-based Northern Territory News from 1954 to 1973.

[3] Due to his political and union involvement, Bowditch soon came under the scrutiny of Australian Security Intelligence Organisation as a possible communist, and this investigation, in part, broke up his marriage with his first wife Iris.

Bowditch was moved to a posting in Darwin, at the Northern Territory News, after a doctored image purportedly showing a UFO sighting was published in the Centralian as an April Fools' Day joke.

[6] The image was created using a photo of a household cup saucer, hanging by a piece of cotton from a tree, with a view of Mount Gillen.

[5] In 1959 Bowditch acted in support of Mick Daly and Gladys Namagu, an interracial couple seeking to marry, and wrote about the extensively about them in the NT News and spoke on behalf of them in the Northern Territory Legislative Council.

[3] Bowditch’s time at the NT News ended abruptly in 1972 after an editorial of his, about the death of the Territory's richest man Michael Paspalis, was pulled and a new editor appointed.

This was due, in large part, to his failure to follow the conservative editorial policy of the NT News after it was purchased by Rupert Murdoch in 1964.

[3] In 1980 Bowditch began working for the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) as a reporter for Territory Tracks and contributed to the Darwin Advertiser and Star newspapers.