Newspaper review: Forget Hanson and dogfood, it’s about News Ltd and Fairfax

Tim Burrowes

March 23, 2009 8:38

While The Oz’s Media section celebrates its tenth anniversary today, one of the biggest issues it faces is well showcased.

Despite doing its best to play a straight bat, the paper can’t get away from its heritage. The Australian newspaper industry is effectively a two horse race, between News Ltd and Fairfax.

And The Oz leverages its News Ltd connections to gain an interview with former boss Lachlan Murdoch. In the interview he exclusively tells the paper that he hasn’t read the Michael Wolff book about his father Rupert; he exclusively reveals that he doesn’t want to discuss his departure from News and exclusively declines to comment on whether he’d ever return. However, he does drop some hints that his investment vehicle Illyria is ready to get into media.

The News Ltd vs Fairfax issue emerges in The Diary too, with about half of it given over to coverage of Melbourne’s Quill Awards for journalism. The Australian is name checked five times, The Age once. It was clearly an excellent night for News Ltd.

Subscribe to keep reading

Join Mumbrella Pro to access the Mumbrella archive and read our premium analysis of everything under the media and marketing umbrella.

Tim Burrowes

Tim Burrowes is the publisher of Mumbrella and Unmade. He co-founded Mumbrella in 2008 and sister title Unmade in 2021. He's worked in the UK, Middle East, Asia & Australia and has specialised in writing about the communications world for the last 25 years. He wrote the book Media Unmade, published in 2021, and became the presenter of MediaLand on ABC Radio National in 2025.