The Australian

From Free net encyclopedia

Image:The-australian-masthead-new.png The Australian (informally referred to as The Oz) is a national daily broadsheet newspaper published by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Headquartered in Sydney, but with bureaux around Australia, it was founded in 1964, losing money for nearly thirty years. Its circulation is still quite small, with a weekday circulation of approximately 130,000 and a Saturday circulation of approximately 295,000.

The Australian is described as an influential paper not because of how many people read it but because of who reads it - the politicial elite and the business class.

The Australian treads the Murdoch editorial line on most issues: it supports free-trade economic policy, a realpolitik approach to foreign policy, and is particularly in favour of relaxed regulation of the media sector. It could be politically described as being an advocate of New Right ideas.

Unlike its downmarket stablemates, such as The Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun, the paper adopts a somewhat liberal approach on social issues. It has a particular focus on foreign news, especially in relation to Australia's immediate neighbours in South-East Asia. On Monday it has a liftout focussing on worldwide issues, on Tuesdays an IT liftouts, Wealth and High Education liftouts on Wednesday, Media and Marketing on Thursdays and an expanded sport liftout on Fridays.

Amongst its regular columnists are the political journalist Paul Kelly, foreign editor Greg Sheridan, left-wing radio broadcaster Phillip Adams, and Conservative writers Janet Albrechtsen and Angela Shanahan. It also features daily cartoons from Bill Leak and Peter Nicholson. The paper's editor in chief as at November 2005 was Chris Mitchell.

As the only national daily, with the exception of the business-oriented Australian Financial Review, its closest competitors in the major Australian markets are the Fairfax broadsheets The Sydney Morning Herald, and Melbourne's The Age.