Australia

Colonial Period

European settlement began in Australia with the founding of the penal colony at Sydney Cove in 1788, and a printing press was carried aboard the first fleet. However, it was not until 1803 that the first newspaper, the Sydney Gazette, began rather inauspiciously as a government-licensed publication carrying officially sanctioned information. By the 1820s there were several independent, competing newspapers, taking up the rights of emancipated convicts and free settlers, and the principle of press liberty was officially recognized and observed. Fierce conflicts with officialdom soon arose, with some journalists being jailed and some papers charged with sedition. When the conflicts abated, however, the principles of independent journalism with rights at least equal to those in the colonial power, Britain, prevailed.

The bulk of the newspapers formed in this period were very small operations run by a publisher/editor with minimal supporting staff. Representative self-government came to the colonies from the 1850s. As gold rushes and agricultural development transformed the colonies' economies, the move toward federation and a growing sense of Australian nationalism gathered increasing impetus. The press was responsive to these political currents. Its role in the major cities became more politically important and their editorial attitudes more varied and strongly stated. The outstanding figure of Australian journalism from the mid-nineteenth century was David Syme, editor and publisher of the Age in Melbourne and a strong voice for federation and also for tariff protection to allow the infant country's industries to grow. Meanwhile the major Sydney paper, the Sydney Morning Herald, was more conservative, favoring free trade, and less enthusiastic about moves toward severing ties with mother Britain. Nevertheless the mainstream metropolitan press was unanimous in its sense of hope and patriotism for the new nation in 1901.

The Murdochs

From the 1920s, the most powerful figure in Australian journalism was Sir Keith Murdoch, father of contemporary global media magnate Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch senior had become famous and an intimate of political leaders and press barons as a result of his disclosures about the disasters of the 1915 Gallipolli campaign in World War I. After the war, he pioneered English tabloid techniques in Australia. Indeed he was nicknamed Southcliffe, the antipodean version of Britain's famous tabloid press baron, Lord Northcliffe, with whom he had a close personal association.

At least as important as his journalistic innovations was that Murdoch was a leader in the consolidation of Australian press ownership. In the 1930s, the Great Depression brought the collapse of many papers, and most of the survivors were under financial stress. This facilitated Murdoch's task. By his death in the early 1950s, the company of which he was chief executive officer (but not the major shareholder, much to the chagrin of his son Rupert, for whom keeping family control of his company became an abiding preoccupation) had a central presence in all Australian state capitals except Sydney.

...