''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition, ''The Weekend Australian'', is a
broadsheet newspaper published by
News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964.
[Bruns, Axel. "3.1. The active audience: Transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatewatching." (2008). "''The Australian'' has long positioned itself as a loyal supporter of the incumbent government of Prime Minister John Howard, and is widely regarded as generally favouring the conservative side of politics."] As the only Australian daily newspaper distributed nationally, its readership of both print and
online editions was 2,394,000. Its editorial line has been self-described over time as
centre-right.
Parent companies
''The Australian'' is published by News Corp Australia, an asset of
News Corp, which also owns the sole daily newspapers in
Brisbane,
Adelaide,
Hobart, and
Darwin, and the most circulated metropolitan daily newspapers in
Sydney and
Melbourne.
News Corp's Chairman and Founder is
Rupert Murdoch.
''The Australian'' integrates content from overseas newspapers owned by News Corp Australia's international parent News Corp, including ''
The Wall Street Journal'' and ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'' of London.
History
The first edition of ''The Australian'' was published by
Rupert Murdoch on 15 July 1964, becoming the third
national newspaper
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports an ...
in Australia following shipping newspaper ''
Daily Commercial News
''Daily Cargo News'' (DCN) is a monthly Australian shipping, trade, transport and logistics focused magazine, published by Paragon Media. First published in 1891 as ''Daily Commercial News'', ''Daily Cargo News'' is Australia's longest running na ...
'' (1891) and ''
Australian Financial Review'' (1951). Unlike other original Murdoch newspapers, it is not a tabloid publication.
At the time, a national paper was considered commercially unfeasible, as newspapers mostly relied on local advertising for their revenue. ''The Australian'' was printed in Canberra, then plates flown to other cities for copying.
From its inception, the paper struggled for financial viability, and ran at a loss for several decades.
A Sunday edition, ''The Sunday Australian'', was established in 1971. It was discontinued in 1972, though, because press capacity was insufficient to print ''
The Sunday Telegraph'', the ''
Sunday Mirror'', and it.
''The Australian's'' first editor was
Maxwell Newton, before leaving the newspaper within a year,
and was succeeded by Walter Kommer, and then by
Adrian Deamer. Under Deamer's editorship, ''The Australian'' encouraged female journalists, and was the first mainstream daily newspaper to hire an Aboriginal reporter,
John Newfong.
During the
1975 election, campaigning against the
Whitlam government by its owner led to the newspaper's journalists striking over editorial direction.
Editor-in-chief
Chris Mitchell was appointed in 2002 and retired on 11 December 2015; he was replaced by
Paul Whittaker, formerly the editor-in-chief of Sydney's ''
Daily Telegraph''.
In May 2010, the newspaper launched the first Australian newspaper
iPad application.
In October 2011, ''The Australian'' announced that it was planning to become the first general newspaper in Australia to introduce a
paywall, with the introduction of a $2.95/week charge for readers to view premium content on its website, mobile phone, and tablet apps. The paywall was officially launched on 24 October, with a free 3-month trial.
In September 2017, ''The Australian'' launched a Chinese website.
In October 2018,
Chris Dore, former editor of ''The Daily Telegraph'', ''
The Courier-Mail'', and ''
The Sunday Times'' (Western Australia) was announced as taking over as editor-in-chief.
Coverage
Daily sections include national news ("The Nation"), world news ("Worldwide"), sport news, and business news ("Business"). Contained within each issue is a prominent opinion/editorial (op/ed) section, including regular columnists and occasional contributors. Other regular sections include technology ("Australian IT"), media (edited by
Darren Davidson since 2015), features, legal affairs, aviation, defence, horse-racing ("Thoroughbreds"), the arts, health, wealth, and higher education. A traveland indulgence section is included on Saturdays, along with "The Inquirer", an in-depth analysis of major stories of the week, alongside much political commentary. Saturday lift-outs include "Review", focusing on books, arts, film, and television, and ''The Weekend Australian Magazine'', the only national weekly glossy insert magazine. A glossy magazine, ''Wish'', is published on the first Friday of the month.
"''The Australian'' has long maintained a focus on issues relating to
Aboriginal disadvantage."
It also devotes attention to the
information technology,
defence and
mining industries,
as well as the science, economics, and
politics of climate change
The politics of climate change results from different perspectives on how to respond to climate change. Global warming is driven largely by the Greenhouse gas emissions, emissions of greenhouse gases due to human economic activity, especially the ...
. It has also published numerous special reports into Australia's energy policy, legal affairs, and research sector.
The ''
Australian Literary Review
The ''Australian Literary Review'' (ALR) was a monthly supplement to ''The Australian'' newspaper established in September 2006 and published on the first Wednesday of each month. The headquarters was in Surry Hills, New South Wales. It was cons ...
'' was a monthly supplement from September 2006 to October 2011.
The tone and nature of ''The Australian's'' coverage has changed over time, but since the late 20th century under the ownership of Rupert Murdoch and with Chris Mitchell as editor-in-chief, it has taken a markedly
conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
direction.
It was outspoken in supporting the conservative government of Prime Minister
John Howard.
Editorial and opinion pages
Former editor
Paul Kelly stated in 1991, "''The Australian'' has established itself in the marketplace as a newspaper that supports economic libertarianism". Laurie Clancy asserted in 2004 that the newspaper "is generally conservative in tone and heavily oriented toward business; it has a range of columnists of varying political persuasions, but mostly to the right." Former editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell has said that the editorial and op-ed pages of the newspaper are
centre-right but "claims it is down the middle in its news coverage".
In 2007, ''
Crikey
Crikey is an Australian electronic magazine comprising a website and email newsletter available to subscribers. Crikey was described by the former Federal Opposition Leader Mark Latham as the "most popular website in Parliament House" in '' T ...
'' described the newspaper as generally in support of the
Liberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is a centre-right political party in Australia, one of the two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-left Australian Labor Party. It was founded in 1944 as the successor to the United Au ...
and the
then-Coalition government, but has pragmatically supported Labor governments in the past as well.
In 2007, ''The Australian'' announced their support for
Kevin Rudd
Kevin Michael Rudd (born 21 September 1957) is an Australian former politician and diplomat who served as the 26th prime minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010 and again from June 2013 to September 2013, holding office as the leader of the ...
of the
Australian Labor Party in the
Federal election. As of 2021, the last time the paper endorsed the Labor Party at any level, state or federal, was the 2010 Victorian election. Along with other Australian papers owned by News Ltd, ''The Australian'' has been highly and repeatedly critical of the Labor Party.
''The Australian'' presents varying views on
climate change, including articles by those who disagree with the alleged scientific consensus, such as
Ian Plimer, and those who agree, such as
Tim Flannery and
Bjørn Lomborg
Bjørn Lomborg (; born 6 January 1965) is a Danish author and president of the think tank Copenhagen Consensus Center. He is former director of the Danish government's Environmental Assessment Institute (EAI) in Copenhagen. He became internat ...
. A 2011 study of the previous seven years of articles claimed that four out of every five articles were opposed to taking action on climate change.
In 2010, ABC's ''
Media Watch'' presenter
Paul Barry
Paul James Barry (born 24 February 1952) is an English-born, Australian-based journalist, newsreader and television presenter, who has won many awards for his investigative reporting. He previously worked for the BBC on numerous programs, bef ...
accused ''The Australian'' of waging a campaign against the
Australian Greens, and the Greens' federal leader
Bob Brown
Robert James Brown (born 27 December 1944) is a former Australian politician, medical doctor and environmentalist. He was a senator and the parliamentary leader of the Australian Greens. Brown was elected to the Australian Senate on the Tasma ...
wrote that ''The Australian'' has "stepped out of the
fourth estate by seeing itself as a determinant of democracy in Australia". In response, ''The Australian'' opined that "Greens leader Bob Brown has accused ''The Australian'' of trying to wreck the alliance between the Greens and Labor. We wear Senator Brown's criticism with pride. We believe he and his Green colleagues are hypocrites; that they are bad for the nation; and that they should be destroyed at the ballot box".
''The Australian'' has been described by some media commentators and scholars as working to promote a
right-wing agenda, and as a result, encouraging political polarisation in Australia.
In 2019, former ''The Australian'' journalist Rick Morton reported in ''
The Saturday Paper
''The Saturday Paper'' is an Australian weekly newspaper, launched on 1 March 2014 in hard copy, as an online newspaper and in mobile news format. The paper is circulated throughout Australian capital cities and major regional centres. Since ...
'' that an unpublished study by
Victoria University, Melbourne
Victoria University (VU or Vic Uni) is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is one of only six dual-sector universities in Australia, providing courses in both higher education and Technical and Further Educat ...
, found that ''The Australian'' "fuels far-right recruitment" through
dog whistle coded language. Victoria University issued a statement that "At no point does the research report claim that News Ltd publication fuelled far-right sentiment."
Notable stories
AWB kickback scandal
Caroline Overington, a senior journalist writing for ''The Australian'', reported in 2005 about the
Australian Wheat Board funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to Iraq and the government of
Saddam Hussein before the start of the
Iraq War. This story became known as the
AWB oil-for-wheat scandal
The AWB oil-for-wheat scandal (also known just as the AWB scandal) refers to the payment of Kickback (bribery), kickbacks to the regime of Saddam Hussein in contravention of the United Nations Oil-for-Food Humanitarian Programme. AWB Limited is a ...
, and resulted in a commission of inquiry into the matter. Overington received a
Walkley award
The annual Walkley Awards are presented in Australia to recognise and reward excellence in journalism. They cover all media including print, television, documentary, radio, photographic and online media. The Gold Walkley is the highest prize and ...
for her coverage.
Stimulus Watch
In 2009, ''The Australian'' ran a large number of articles about the
Rudd government
Rudd Government may refer to the following Australian governments:
* Rudd government (2007–10)
Rudd Government may refer to the following Australian governments:
* Rudd government (2007–10)
* Rudd government (2013)
{{Dab ...
* Rudd gov ...
's
Building the Education Revolution
Building the Education Revolution (BER) is an Australian government program administered by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) designed to provide new and refurbished infrastructure to all eligible Austral ...
policy, which uncovered purported evidence of overpricing, financial waste, and mismanagement of the building of improvements to schools such as halls, gymnasia, and libraries. On the newspaper's website, a section named "Stimulus Watch", subtitled "How your Billions Are Being Spent", contained a large collection of such articles.
The following year, other media outlets also reported these issues and the policy turned into a political embarrassment for the government, which until then had been able to ignore ''The Australian''s reports. Along with the government's
insulation stimulus policy, it contributed to criticisms, perceptions of incompetence, and general dissatisfaction with the government's performance.
On 16 July 2010,
Julia Gillard was reported to have admitted that the school-building program was flawed and that errors had been made because the program was designed in haste to protect jobs during the
global financial crisis
Global means of or referring to a globe and may also refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Global'' (Paul van Dyk album), 2003
* ''Global'' (Bunji Garlin album), 2007
* ''Global'' (Humanoid album), 1989
* ''Global'' (Todd Rundgren album), 2015
* Bruno ...
.
AWU Affair
In 2011,
Glenn Milne
Glenn Milne is a Canberra journalist and political commentator. He worked for News Limited as a columnist for ''The Australian'' newspaper and as a writer for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
He is a former chief political correspondent fo ...
reported on the allegations against Prime Minister
Julia Gillard concerning the
AWU affair, including a claim regarding Gillard's living arrangements with
Australian Workers' Union official Bruce Wilson. Gillard contacted the chief executive of ''The Australian'', resulting in the story being removed and an apology and retraction posted in its place.
On 18 August 2012,
Hedley Thomas reported that Gillard had left her job as a partner with law firm
Slater and Gordon as a direct result of a secret internal investigation in 1995 into corrupt conduct on behalf of her then-boyfriend Ralph Blewett. The story was ignored for a long time by other media outlets until after Gillard held a press conference to respond to the allegations against her. In 2013, the
Fair Work Commission commenced initial inquiries into allegations of improper union financial conduct, and the government initiated a judicial inquiry into the AWU affair in December of that year as part of a royal commission into trade unions.
''The Teacher's Pet''
''The Teachers Pet'', an investigation into the
disappearance of Lynette Dawson
Lynette Joy Dawson (born 1948) was an Australian missing person who disappeared on 9 January 1982, leaving two daughters and her husband, former rugby league footballer Chris Dawson. Her whereabouts are unknown, but two coronial inquests foun ...
, is a
podcast written by Hedley Thomas and Slade Gibson that ran in 2018. It was credited with generating new leads that led to the subsequent arrest of
Chris Dawson for the murder of his wife, and the setting up of police enquiry Strike Force Southwood to explore claims of sexual assaults and student-teacher relationships at several Sydney high schools brought up on the podcast. The series has had 28 million downloads,
was the number-one Australian podcast and reached number one in the UK, Canada, and New Zealand.
Both Hedley and Gibson received
Gold Walkley awards for their work on the series.
Columnists and contributors
Former columnists include Mike Steketee,
David Burchell,
Michael Stutchbury, Simon Adamek,
Emma Jane,
George Megalogenis, Glenn Milne,
Cordelia Fine
Cordelia Fine (born 1975) is a Canadian-born British philosopher of science, psychologist and writer. She is a full professor of history and philosophy of science at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Fine has written three popular scienc ...
, Alan Wood,
Michael Costa,
P. P. McGuinness,
Michael Costello,
Frank Devine,
Matt Price
Matt Price (15 October 1961 – 25 November 2007) was an Australian journalist and newspaper columnist.
Price was from Western Australia and was educated at Newman College, Churchlands and the University of Western Australia, from which ...
,
Christopher Pearson,
Niki Savva.
Political cartoonist
Bill Leak
Desmond Robert "Bill" Leak (9 January 1956 – 10 March 2017) was an Australian editorial cartoonist, caricaturist and portraitist.
Raised in Condobolin and Beacon Hill, Sydney, Leak attended Julian Ashton Art School during the 1970s. His cart ...
worked for the paper until his death..
Columnists include
Janet Albrechtsen, Troy Bramston,
Henry Ergas,
Ticky Fullerton,
Robert Gottliebsen,
Gideon Haigh,
Paul Kelly,
Chris Kenny,
Brendan O'Neill,
Nicolas Rothwell, Angela Shanahan,
Dennis Shanahan,
Greg Sheridan
Gregory Paul Sheridan (born 1956) is an Australian foreign affairs journalist, author and commentator. He has written a number of books on politics, religion and international affairs and has been the foreign editor of ''The Australian'' newsp ...
,
Judith Sloan,
Peter van Onselen,
Graham Richardson,
Peta Credlin. It also features daily cartoons from
Johannes Leak.
Occasional contributors include
Gregory Melleuish
Gregory Melleuish (born 1954) is an Australian associate professor of history and politics at the University of Wollongong. Subjects he teaches include Australian politics, political theory, world history and ancient history. Previously, he taug ...
,
Kevin Donnelly,
Caroline Overington,
Tom Switzer,
James Allan,
Hal G.P. Colebatch, Luke Slattery,
Noel Pearson,
Bettina Arndt, Julia Gillard,
Tony Abbott
Anthony John Abbott (; born 4 November 1957) is a former Australian politician who served as the 28th prime minister of Australia from 2013 to 2015. He held office as the leader of the Liberal Party of Australia.
Abbott was born in Londo ...
, and
Lucian Boz.
Contributors to ''The Weekend Australian Magazine'' and "Review" in ''The Weekend Australian'' include
Phillip Adams
Phillip Adams, Philip Adams, or Phil Adams may refer to:
Sports
* Phillip Adams (American football) (1988–2021), American football cornerback
* Phillip Adams (sport shooter) (born 1945), Australian pistol shooter
* Phil Adams (cricketer) (born 1 ...
, national art critic
Christopher Allen, actor and writer
Graeme Blundell,
Jeremy Clarkson
Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson (born 11 April 1960) is an English broadcaster, journalist, game show host and writer who specialises in motoring. He is best known for the motoring programmes '' Top Gear'' and '' The Grand Tour'' alongside R ...
,
Antonella Gambotto-Burke
Antonella Gambotto-Burke (née Antonella Gambotto, born 19 September 1965) is an Italian-Australian author, journalist and singer-songwriter based in Kent, England, known for her writing about sex, death and motherhood.
Gambotto-Burke is best k ...
, author
Trent Dalton, author
Nikki Gemmell, poet
Sarah Holland-Batt
Sarah Holland-Batt is a contemporary Australian poet, critic, and academic.
Early life and education
Born in Southport, Queensland, Sarah Holland-Batt grew up in Australia and Denver, Colorado.
She was educated at the University of Queensland ...
, demographer
Bernard Salt, film critic
David Stratton
David James Stratton (born 10 September 1939) is an English-Australian award-winning film critic, as both a journalist and interviewer, film historian and lecturer and television personality and producer.
Life and career
Born in Trowbridge, ...
.
Australian of the Year Award
In 1971, ''The Australian'' instituted its own "Australian of the Year award" separate and often different from the
Australian of the Year chosen by the government's
National Australia Day Council. Starting in 1968, the official award had long had links to the Victorian Australia Day Council, and at the time a public perception arose that it was state-based. As a national newspaper, ''The Australian'' felt it was better situated to create an award that more truly represented all of Australia. Nominees are suggested by readers, decided upon by an editorial board, and awarded in January of every year.
Circulation
In the June quarter of 2013, the average print circulation for ''The Australian'' on weekdays was 116,655, and 254,891 for ''The Weekend Australian''. Both were down (9.8 and 10.8%, respectively) compared to the June quarter the previous year.
As of March 2015, the weekday edition circulation was 104,165 and the weekend edition was 230,182, falling 6.5% and 3.3%, respectively, compared to the same period in 2014. ''The Australian'' had 67,561 paid digital subscribers in the same period.
As of August 2015, according to third-party
web analytics providers
Alexa
Alexa may refer to: Technology
*Amazon Alexa, a virtual assistant developed by Amazon
* Alexa Internet, a defunct website ranking and traffic analysis service
* Arri Alexa, a digital motion picture camera
People
* Alexa (name), a given name a ...
and
SimilarWeb, ''The Australian''s website was the 72nd- and 223rd-most visited websites in Australia, respectively.
SimilarWeb rates the site as the 23rd-most visited news website in Australia, attracting almost 3 million visitors per month.
In September 2018, according to
Roy Morgan Research
Roy Morgan, formerly known as Roy Morgan Research, is an independent Australian social and political market research and public opinion statistics company headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria. It operates nationally as Roy Morgan and internatio ...
, ''The Australian'' had a readership of 303,000.
In September 2019, Roy Morgan reported figures of 843,000 (Sep 2018 – 810,000) for the print version (total, weekend, and weekday editions); digital versions 1,903, 000 (Sep 2018 – 1,812,000); total cross-platform 2,394,000 (Sep 2018 – 2,503,000); down 4.4%. (By way of comparison, ''
The Sydney Morning Herald
''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...
'' total figure was 4,209,000; ''
The Age'' (Melbourne) 2,852,000, ''
Herald Sun'' (Melbourne) 2,801,000. The only other nationally distributed daily newspaper, the business-focused ''
Australian Financial Review'', had 1,599,000 cross-platform readers (up 17.7%).)
Awards
The paper has won Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers' Association awards on several occasions:
*2007 Online Newspaper of the Year award
*2017 Daily Newspaper of the Year, Weekend Newspaper of the Year and Best Mobile site categories
Several journalists writing for
''The Australian'' have received Walkley awards for their investigative reporting.
See also
*
Journalism in Australia
*
List of newspapers in Australia
*
List of newspapers in New South Wales
*
List of Walkley awards won by ''The Australian''
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Australian, The
News Corp Australia
Newspapers published in Sydney
Publications established in 1964
1964 establishments in Australia
Daily newspapers published in Australia