The Australian’s media reporter, Sophie Elsworth, is on the move.
Elsworth, who has reported on the beat for The Australian’s business network for the past three and a half years, has picked up the role of News Corp’s London correspondent, reporting for all of the organisation’s titles, including the various capital city-based mastheads.
An internal email to staff on Tuesday announcing the move, penned by The Daily Telegraph editor Ben English, said Elsworth would report to News Corp’s national editor of network news, Sarah Blake, and described Elsworth as a “tenacious news hound”.
Elsworth has been at News Corp for her entire career, spanning more than two decades across several mastheads. She began as an editorial assistant at The Herald and Weekly Times in Melbourne in 2001 (now the Herald Sun), before securing a cadetship at The Advertiser in Adelaide in 2005, where she then worked as a journalist. She spent time at Brisbane’s Courier-Mail before moving into the personal finance beat across News Corp mastheads, and took up the media post with The Australian in March 2021.
Elsworth shares the media beat at The Australian with media editor James Madden (with whom she currently shares a Sunday column titled Media Diary). It has previously been covered by the likes of Sky News Australia’s Sharri Markson, as well as The Australian’s managing director Darren Davidson and the ABC’s communications lead Nick Leys.
Elsworth was contacted for comment by Crikey on the Friday prior to Tuesday’s announcement but did not respond for comment.
She will begin her new role in November.
Correction: An earlier version of this piece incorrectly stated that The Australian’s current political editor Simon Benson had previously covered the media beat. It has been amended to reflect the fact that he has not.
