Summary If it were not for Stuart Littlemore, it's unlikely anyone outside of the Illawarra region would ever have heard of Peter Cullen. But Littlemore's merciless lampooning of "The Merc" turned the paper into a byword for the excesses and frailties of tabloid journalism. It was a notoriety Cullen came to enjoy in a masochistic kind of way. He says he and Littlemore even exchanged Christmas cards. But now, after thirty years in the job, Peter Cullen is retiring and handing over to a handpicked protege. Australian Story joined him for his last fortnight at the helm of "The Merc" and quite a fortnight it turned out to be as Cullen tackled what he describes as the biggest story in the paper's history - the Wollongong floods. As the story unfolds, we also discover that there's rather more to Cullen and "The Merc" than you'd ever guess from "Media Watch". Cullen cares deeply for his local community to whom his love of football and horse racing is well known. But he's also passionate about poetry and opera. In the post Littlemore era, the newspaper has even earned recognition for its work in uncovering the activities of alleged paedophiles including former mayor Frank Arkell who was murdered in his bed in July. It emerges that Cullen paid a high personal price for the campaign, not least in facing accusations of betrayal from his own church.

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• Biography