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Guest Character Profiles > Howard Hall John Henderson

Howard Hall 2012, 2013, 2015
Occupation: Journalist at Erinsborough News, Editor of West Waratah Star

Erinsborough News journalist Howard Hall was one of the members of staff who were happy when Susan Kennedy took over as editor, as she allowed them to find their own stories, giving them a lot more creative freedom than previous editor Paul Robinson. A few months later, Howard quickly became pally with the newspaper's new deputy editor Bradley Fox, and Bradley gave him a story on a local prospective Paralympian, annoying junior Summer Hoyland, who had pitched the story. Summer complained to Susan, unaware that Bradley had given Howard the story because he had a brother in a wheelchair and had written about disability sports before.

The following year, Howard had moved to the West Watarah Star newspaper, following its merge with the Erinsborough News, and had worked his way up to editor. He met with swimming coach Brad Willis, to discuss a sponsorship deal for his son, Joshua. The Star had previously sponsored another swimmer, Hudson Walsh, but after taking performance enhancing drugs, and almost wrecking his career, Hudson had asked to end the sponsorship, and suggested Josh as his replacement.

In 2015, Howard interviewed Lou Carpenter, who'd become something of a local celebrity the previous year, after claiming that he'd been responsible for writing The Book of Secrets, an erotic short story which had proved popular. Lou had then signed a publishing deal to write a full novel, and he turned to Karl Kennedy, who'd actually been responsible for the short story, but had been unable to cope with all of the attention from women. Karl agreed to write the novel, but when the manuscript got mixed up with some recycling and ended up all over the streets of Erinsborough, Paul - who by now was the Mayor of Erinsborough - realised that he was amongst the locals who were being used in the plot, and he tracked down Lou and Howard, and warned that he would sue if the book was ever published, or if any of the information made it into the newspaper.

Later in the year, Paul found himself caught up in another, far more serious, scandal, when Howard received an anonymous email, containing one of Paul's private emails, in which he was very insulting towards the local high school students. With the school facing closure, and Paul seemingly keen for it to go ahead as he'd bought up the land surrounding the school to develop into a housing estate, he quickly became public enemy number one. Paul then agreed to meet with Howard for an interview, where he claimed that his comments had been tongue-in-cheek, and that he'd been an Erinsborough High student himself, and would never insult them like that.

Trivia Notes
• John Henderson also played the unnamed journalist (presumably Howard) credited in episode 6377

Tenure
6389, 6390, 6502, 6692, 7050, 7243

Biography by Steve

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