[Commlist] New Book: Paper Emperors: The rise of Australia’s newspaper empires

New book announcement: PAPER EMPERORS: THE RISE OF AUSTRALIA’S NEWSPAPER 
EMPIRES by Sally Young (UNSW Press, March 2019)

https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/unfit-print/

‘A tour de force.’ — Professor Rodney Tiffen

Before newspapers were ravaged by the digital age, they were a powerful 
force, especially in Australia — a country of newspaper giants and 
kingmakers. In newsrooms, there is a saying that ‘the best stories are 
never printed in the paper’. This landmark book tells those stories; it 
reveals who owned Australia’s newspapers and how they used them to wield 
political power.

In the 20th century, Australians were unaware that they were reading 
newspapers owned by secret bankrupts and failed land boomers, powerful 
mining magnates, Underbelly-style gangsters, bankers and corporate 
titans. Newspaper owners were hidden behind elaborate company 
structures, shadowy trusts and proxy shareholders.

Paper Emperors is a corporate and political history of Australian 
newspapers across nearly 140 years, beginning in 1803 with Australia’s 
first newspaper owner, a convict who became a wealthy bank owner, and 
ending with the resignation of Menzies in 1941, and his conviction that 
a handful of press barons brought him down. It explains how Australia’s 
media system came to be dominated by a handful of empires and powerful 
family dynasties. It shows how newspaper owners influenced public 
policy, lobbied and bullied politicians, and shaped internal party politics.

Sally Young has given us a new way of understanding how power worked — 
and no doubt still works — in Australia.


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