| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner | News Limited |
| Editor | Clive Mathieson |
| Editor-in-chief | Chris Mitchell |
| Founded | 14 July 1964 |
| Headquarters | Sydney, Australia |
| ISSN | 1038-8761 |
| Official website | theaustralian.com.au |
The Australian is a broadsheet newspaper published in Australia from Monday to Saturday each week since 14 July 1964. The editor in chief is Chris Mitchell, the editor is Clive Mathieson and the 'editor-at-large' is Paul Kelly.
The Australian is the biggest-selling national newspaper in the country, with weekday sales of 135,000 and Saturday sales of 305,000, figures substantially below those of top-selling papers in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Its chief rival is the business-focused Australian Financial Review.
In May 2010, the newspaper launched the first Australian newspaper iPad app.[1]
Contents |
The Australian is published by News Limited, an asset of News Corporation, that also owns the sole dailies in Brisbane, Adelaide, Hobart and Darwin and the most popular metropolitan dailies in Sydney and Melbourne.[2] News Corporation's Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Founder is Rupert Murdoch.
The Australian integrates content from overseas newspapers owned by News Limited's parent, News Corporation, including the Wall Street Journal and The Times.[2]
The first edition of The Australian was published by Rupert Murdoch on 15 July 1964, becoming the first national newspaper in Australia.[3] Unlike other Murdoch newspapers, it was neither a tabloid nor an acquired publication.[4] From its inception The Australian struggled for financial viability and ran at a loss for several decades[4]
Daily sections include National News (The Nation) followed by Worldwide News (Worldwide), Sport and Business News (Business). Contained within each issue is a prominent op/ed section, including regular columnists and non-regular contributors. Other regular sections include Technology (AustralianIT), Media, Features, Legal Affairs, Aviation, Defence, Horse-Racing (Thoroughbreds), The Arts, Health, Wealth and Higher Education. A Travel & 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."[2] It also devotes attention to the information technology, Defence and mining industries,[2] as well as the science, economics, and politics of climate change. It has also published numerous "special reports" into Australian energy policy.
Since 2006 the Australian Literary Review has been a monthly supplement.
In 2009, The Australian ran many articles about the Rudd Government's 'Building the Education Revolution' policy, which uncovered evidence of over-pricing, financial waste and mismanagement of the building of improvements to schools such as halls, gymnasiums and libraries. On the newspaper's website, there was a section named 'Stimulus Watch', sub-titled 'How your Billions Are Being Spent' which contained a large collection of such articles.
The following year, 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 perceptions of incompetence and general dissatisfaction with the government's performance. On 16 July 2010 it was reported that Julia Gillard had admitted that the school-building program was flawed and that that errors had been made because the program was designed in haste to protect jobs during the global financial crisis.[5]
In October 2011 News Ltd announced that it was planning to become the first general newspaper in Australia to introduce a paywall. It will charge readers $2.95 a week to view all content on its website and mobile phone and tablet applications.[6]
Mitchell has said that the editorial and op-ed pages of the newspaper are centre-right,[7] "comfortable with a mainstream Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd, just as it was quite comfortable with John Howard."[2] According to other commentators, however, 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."[8] Its former editor Paul Kelly has stated that "The Australian has established itself in the marketplace as a newspaper that strongly supports economic libertarianism".[9]
The Australian presents varying views on climate change, including giving space to articles and authors who agree with the scientific consensus, such as Tim Flannery, those who agree with the cause but disagree with the methods of coping with it, such as Bjorn Lomborg,[10] through to those who disagree that the causes or even presence of global warming are understood, such as Ian Plimer.
Robert Manne wrote that "The Australian is... the only newspaper that is read by virtually all members of the group of insiders I call the political class, a group that includes politicians, leading public servants, business people and the most politically engaged citizens. Even those members of the political class who loathe the paper understand that they cannot afford to ignore it."[11]
In September 2010 the presenter of the ABC's Media Watch, Paul Barry, accused The Australian of waging a campaign against the Australian Greens. The Greens' federal leader Bob Brown 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."
In April 2011, Leader of the Greens, Bob Brown, accused the Australian of deliberate false reporting in order to discredit the Greens party.[12] He also requested a guarantee that the newspaper would not use surveillance devices against them, and said that he would be willing to debate representatives of the newspaper in public.
Antipathy is also considered to exist toward the centre-left ALP, the governing party of Australia as of 2011[update]. According to Stephen Conroy, the ALP Communications Minister, The Australian, along with other News Ltd newspapers, actively seeks to bring down the current government and force an early election.[13]
Regular columnists include Dennis Shanahan, David Burchell, Peter van Onselen, Michael Stutchbury, Simon Adamek, Glenn Milne, Paul Kelly, George Megalogenis, Mike Steketee, Greg Sheridan, Alan Wood, Phillip Adams, Nicolas Rothwell, Janet Albrechtsen, Imre Salusinszky, Chris Kenny, Troy Bramston, Nikki Savva, Tim Soutphommasane, Judith Sloan, Emma Tom and Angela Shanahan. It also features daily cartoons from Bill Leak and Peter Nicholson.
Occasional contributors include Gregory Melleuish, Kevin Donnelly, Tom Switzer, James Allan, Luke Slattery, and Noel Pearson.
Former columnists include Cordelia Fine,[14] Michael Costa, Michael Costello, Frank Devine and Matt Price.
In November 2006, The Australian journalist Caroline Overington was awarded both the Sir Keith Murdoch Award for Journalism and a Walkley for investigative journalism over her coverage of the AWB Oil-for-Wheat Scandal for the paper.[15] The following year, Hedley Thomas won the Gold Walkley Award for his coverage of the Haneef case.
Also in 2007, the newspaper's website won the Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers' Association Online Newspaper of the Year award.[16]
In January of every year, The Australian announces its choice for "Australian of the Year". In 2011, the newspaper announced that Treasury Secretary Ken Henry was its winner of the award for 2010.[17] Previous winners include Kevin Rudd (2009),[18] Stephen Keim (2008),[19] Bob Brown (1983)[20] and Gough Whitlam.[18]
