James Claude Macdougall (1903–1995), journalist, was born on 25 August 1903 in Brisbane, third son of Dugald Graeme Macdougall, a Victorian-born journalist, and his Queensland-born wife Mary, née Ryan. After the family moved to Melbourne, Jim attended Wesley College (1917–19), then spent some happy years jackarooing on a property in the Riverina owned by (Sir) George Fairbairn, a friend of his father. In 1923 his father showed another prominent acquaintance, (Sir) Keith Murdoch, a poem his son had composed while droving sheep, on the strength of which Murdoch hired him in 1924 as a cadet reporter on the Melbourne Herald.