We began Crikey’s Movers and Shakers series with a look at what the biggest names in Australian journalism considered to be the last great piece of journalism they read. We finish the series with a look at their media diets.
We emailed everyone the same eight questions and about one in four got back to us. It was an imperfect list — if we missed you, let us know for next year — but we contacted people from the following outlets: Nine’s major metropolitan mastheads as well as people in its broadcast divisions, The Australian Financial Review, Network Ten, Seven, SBS, the ABC, 2GB, Sky News Australia, Guardian Australia, the News Corp newspapers, The Conversation, Daily Mail Australia, Australian Associated Press, Apple News, Mamamia, Pedestrian and Schwartz Media.
We also included journalism academics, media lawyers and industry body executives, as well as people from smaller outlets like The Nightly, Quillette, Unmade, Capital Brief, the Koori Mail, About Time, The Daily Aus, Women’s Agenda, IndigenousX, Mumbrella, 6 News Australia and of course Crikey. More than 50 people generously offered us their insightful, searing and sometimes cheeky thoughts on the state of the industry.
We want to know about your media diet! What are your favourite newsletters, podcasts, magazines, etc?
Alan Kohler, founder of Eureka Report: My favourite newsletter is The Browser. My favourite newspapers are The New York Times and the Financial Times. My favourite magazine is Construction Physics and Foreign Affairs.
Louise Milligan, reporter at ABC’s Four Corners: This is really hard to narrow down and of course I read, watch and listen widely and admire so many of my friends and colleagues across the media. I consume ABC Radio on and off all day — Radio National and ABC Melbourne. I am loving David Marr on Late Night Live and I think Raf Epstein is such a great, empathetic and intelligent broadcaster, and so is Patricia Karvelas. I am always interested in what Annabel Crabb, Marina Hyde, Jenna Price and Sam Maiden have to say in their columns. In terms of my absolute favourites, outside of the ABC, I love The Saturday Paper, The Monthly, The Rest is History, The Rest is Politics (both the original and the US version), The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. I’m really looking forward to the thoughtful and smart Linton Besser’s take on Media Watch — he is an excellent journalist. My guilty pleasure is the podcast I’ve Had It, which makes me laugh out loud at their war on toxic positivity.
Nick McKenzie, investigative journalist at The Age: I am a creature of habit. The Age, the SMH, the Fin, the Oz, the ABC every morning religiously. Scan the tabs. I dip into and get annoyed with Crikey but I’ve been told that’s the point! I love reading Brett Stephens in the NYT. I listen to the NYT’s The Daily podcast every night when it is uploaded to get to sleep. It mostly keeps me awake though. I’m a huge fan of good narrative journalism — I devoured Say Nothing (the book) by Patrick Radden Keefe and now bingeing the Disney series. Empire of Pain about the Sackler Family was also incredible long-form investigative journalism. I thought Gay Alcorn’s appearance on Brian Reed’s Question Everything podcast was a great insight into modern journalism.
Waleed Aly, co-host of Network 10’s The Project: I don’t have a dedicated media diet as such. It varies depending on what issues I’m trying to research. That said I try to read news as widely as possible, especially in a media landscape that seems like it’s becoming increasingly ideologically divided. That means being as familiar with The Australian as The Guardian, and of course I write for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald so I’m naturally engaged in those papers. And I am on a wide range of newsletter-type lists, including having a Crikey subscription. Sometimes I have no idea how I even got there. I don’t read these things all the time, but I tend to know roughly what’s there in case I need to go back and read more deeply.
I don’t read outlets based on celebrity news, or that regurgitate others’ social media posts, etc. I just don’t have time for that.
But honestly, I find the most valuable stuff tends to sit outside the news cycle. Very little beats a quality essay, which I tend to find not so much by outlet as by topic. Even with podcasts, unless they’re about sport, I tend to veer more towards discussions about more enduring ideas than the daily news. I treat them more as a tutorial than an update for some reason.
John Buckley, media reporter for Capital Brief: Ooooooo. I recently stumped up for Oliver Darcy’s Status newsletter and was gifted an annual sub to New York Magazine (print and all!) for Xmas. I’m enjoying reading both of those. I also pay for the NYT, the Washington Post and Puck — Matthew Belloni is ace. Lucas Shaw’s Screentime is also a must-read, and I chew through a lot of Bloomberg and the FT more broadly. Locally, I try to read everything, including but not limited to: the Fin, the Australian, the SMH and the Age, the Guardian, Crikey. Honorary mentions to Tim Burrowes’ Unmade and Dan Barrett’s Always Be Watching newsletters, though I truly wish there were more. (Let me know if you have suggestions.)
Steve Austin, host of ABC Radio Brisbane Mornings: The AFR on a Friday or Saturday. The Weekend Australian. Podcasts like The Realignment on US policy trends and controversies. Honestly with Bari Weiss. The Economist podcasts. Ipswich Today podcast. YouTube: “TRIGGERnometry” presented by Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster for well-articulated opinion and idea pieces on global affairs. I subscribed to Crikey for a different view of things in Australia. Matt Taibbi’s Racket News for US news and debates. Taibbi works on first principles and old school journalism models of covering a story or issue (US legacy media is comedy). Vanity Fair to discover how poor I am. I don’t subscribe to Quadrant in Australia, however, sometimes when I come across an article I think I should read it for a different perspective on things.
I read more books than is healthy because I only read nonfiction. Best book read this year is Rob Henderson’s Troubled: A memoir of Foster Care, Family and Social Class (NYT bestseller). The book reveals how progressive ideas are based on “luxury beliefs”. Quote: “The poor reap what the luxury belief class sows.” I have changed my view of progressive policy ideas; they fail badly but the poor continually wear the cost and effect.
Myriam Robin, editor of The Australian Financial Review’s Rear Window: I like how NYMag straddles being both eye-catching and substantive. The Economist is a global success for a reason. The FT publishes some of my favourite columnists. I read most major Australian newspapers and generalist subscription products every day. I don’t really do audio or video content daily — it takes too long and there’s too much other stuff to get across. I read the news professionally so I fully expect my media diet to be unusually obsessive.
Justin Stevens, ABC director of news: There’s so much on offer these days that it’s at times overwhelming. I’m always consuming as much ABC journalism as possible, across everything from regional local radio through to daily news output and our impactful current affairs programs. I listen at regular junctures of the day to ABC News radio and the ABC News channel is on in my office all day. I check out what all major Australian outlets have on a daily basis. On social, I love what Zara Seidler and Sam Koslowski and their team continue to achieve with The Daily Aus. I also regularly dip into international offerings including the FT, the Washington Post, The New York Times and various podcasts, depending on what specialised topics I’m in search of and what’s prominent in that week’s news.
Sophie Black, editor-in-chief at Crikey: Above and beyond the bread-and-butter publications that are required reading every day, the icing on my media cupcake is stuff like NYMag’s The Cut personal essay (addicted to this artform), the London Review of Books, Foreign Policy, The Economist, Meanjin, The Monthly, Monocle in hard copy at any airport, newsletters like Blue Milk, Rick Morton’s missives, Cameron Murray, 404 Media for anything tech and just for how they’re building their business, (very) locally The Paris End. Podcasts? Semafor’s Mixed Signals, The Rest is Politics, locally Kate Jinx and Brodie Lancaster’s See Also podcast, and still, oddly the NYT’s The Daily because I find Barbaro’s voice comforting…
Bridie Jabour, associate editor (audio/visual) at Guardian Australia: I read every Sydney/national newspaper every day as well as listen to AM and Guardian Australia’s Full Story. But so does everyone in media, so the other parts of my diet are: pop culture podcast with Melbourne chicks Kate Jinx and Brodie Lancaster See Also; tech podcast with James Hennessy and Raph Dixon Down Round; I particularly love listening to Late Night Live as a podcast with David Marr hosting; there is always at least one thing in The Nightly each day that I haven’t read anywhere else (my husband works there but I have personal connections to almost every outlet in this country so I really mean it!); The Jewish Independent has become required reading for me this year. I also regularly listen to the UK Guardian’s podcast Today in Focus, and US Vox media podcast Pivot, although through gritted teeth at times because I find one of the hosts excruciating. The best newsletter in my inbox is Andie Fox’s Blue Milk. She’s a wonderful writer, reading her is like pausing to catch my breath. I still have a hole in my media diet where The Drum used to be.
Kishor Napier-Raman, CBD columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald: If I’m working I try and whip through our papers and the competitors. The NYT, FT, Politico, the Guardian and Athletic for foreign news/sport. I quite enjoy Semafor for US stuff. But outside of work days and standard doomscrolling time, I get a lot of news fatigue. I pretty much exclusively read fiction/literature probably in part because of this.
Karen Barlow, chief political correspondent at The Saturday Paper: 7am.
Joe Aston, former Rear Window columnist: I always listen to the Chanticleer podcast, while Semafor’s Mixed Signals is terrific — Ben Smith is a generational talent. I still read the latest on AFR multiple times a day and usually spend some time in The Australian’s app. I get everything from the Betoota Advocate to Bloomberg via Instagram. Am fairly devoted to Gideon Haigh’s and Peter Lalor’s cricket Substack, Cricket Et Al. Love reading the FT (especially Robert Smith’s brilliant coverage of Sanjeev Gupta) and absolutely anything by David Remnick in The New Yorker.
Marc Dodd, editor of nine.com.au: Away from news, I love the podcast 60 Songs That Explained the ’90s and 60 Songs That Explain the ’00s by Rob Harvilla for the Ringer. Funny, wistful and a throwback to the great music journalism that was so plentiful at the turn of the century. I still love the feel and look of magazines too — my favourite is Nutmeg, a Scottish football quarterly that captures the quirk and beauty of the game back home.
Gabrielle Jackson, deputy editor at Guardian Australia: I’m one of those Ezra Klein tragics, I’ve gotta say. Obviously I never miss a Full Story episode and I have a love-hate relationship with Pivot. Very sad about the end of Don’t Ask Tig. As for newsletters, I like Semafor, Daily Beast, Crikey’s morning newsletter the Worm (obviously), Nieman Lab for professional reasons, and I love Dinner Party, Garbage Day and Saved for Later for fun.
Peter Cronau, journalist: Favourite media outlets for me depend on the issues I seek information on. For recent reporting from the ground in Gaza, I’ve gone to SBS World News, Al Jazeera, Haaretz, as well as individual reporters inside Gaza, and for a broader analysis, to people like Chris Hedges and Glenn Greenwald. For news on the Pacific nations, I go to the news sites of newspapers and media in their countries. For truthful British news, Declassified UK is a good place to start. In the US, Consortium News and CounterPunch have been long-term reliable outlets. In Australia, its independent outlets like the indispensable Pearls & Irritations, plus Michael West Media, Independent Australia, Declassified Australia, The New Daily, Crikey. Podcasts like 7am are becoming regular listens, as is most of the specialist programming that is appearing on ABC Radio National. Of course, in specialist journals, trade magazines and activist newsletters, you can discover details barely ever touched on by the mainstream media. For what the business establishment in Australia is thinking, the Financial Review is indispensable.
Gina Rushton, editor of Crikey: I obviously read all major Australian print publications and then the usual US ones (NYT, WaPo, WSJ) and I love NYMag. I’ll leave all the comedy and pop culture podcasts I listen to daily and just focus on news, media and politics! My favourites are Semafor’s media podcast Mixed Signals, Foreign Policy’s economics podcast Ones and Tooze, WNBC’s On The Media, The News Agents, Jessica Valenti’s Abortion Every Day and, locally, I like Down Round (the best tech and business podcast around!) I am biased but I think Crikey’s newsletters are fantastic, as are Capital Brief’s and I like the AFR’s legal newsletter. Beyond my regular subscriptions to most major outlets, the newsletters I pay for include Adam Tooze’s Chartbook, Haley Nahman’s Maybe Baby and a quite Sydney-centric one called Highly Enthused.
Misha Ketchell, editor of The Conversation Australia: Well The Conversation, of course! Then every day I listen to RN Breakfast, which I still think is a great roundup of the national news and particularly sharp political coverage. I also read The Australian and The Age and all the morning newsletters, Post from Schwartz Media and the Crikey Worm and the Crikey Daily. I’ll also listen to talkback radio if I’m in a car and I often watch The Project and listen to 7am. I check The Guardian regularly each day. I also read The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The London Review of Books (sometimes). I spend a lot of time listening to podcasts: The Bulwark, The Minefield, The Daily, Heavyweight, How to Fail, Ask Everything, Chat 10 Looks 3, Sports Bizarre.
Eliza Sorman Nilsson, head of content at Mamamia: Along with the Mamamia website, social, newsletters and podcasts (Out Loud, The Quicky, No Filter and The Spill are non-negotiables for me).
- IG for newsy stuff — Daily Aus, Vogue US, Shit You Should Care About, NYT Op-ed, Betoota, Stylist, Cosmo US, The Cut, NYMag, Vulture, SaintHoax, Betches, DeciderDotCom, The Wash, Diet Prada and Evan Ross Katz
- Websites: The Cut, Stylist, Slate, Well + Good, The Guardian, Vogue, The Atlantic, Washington Post
- Substacks: I Love Mess by Emily Kirkpatrick, Hung Up by Hunter Harris, Earl Earl by Lauren Pautin, Now We’re Talking by Doree Shafrir, Embedded by Nick Catucci, Gossip Time by Allie Jones
- Podcasts: My Therapist Ghosted Me, Call Her Daddy, Diary of a CEO, This American Life
- Magazines: Vogue Australia and Vogue Scandinavia subscription / Vanity Fair subscription
- TikTok for funny / mind-numbing stuff
When looking for stories I will use group chats and snooping on FB groups or Reddit for cracking reads (Like Minded Bitches Drinking Wine, Mamamia Outlouders group, Inner West Mums)
Morry Schwartz, founder of Schwartz Media: I could be accused of bias, but I’m a big fan of the Schwartz stable: The Saturday Paper, The Monthly, Quarterly Essay, Australian Foreign Affairs, the Post newsletter and the podcast 7am. I always read The Weekend Australian and have been a fan of Capital Brief from day one. From overseas I read The New York Times, The Financial Times, Times of Israel, The Economist, Foreign Affairs, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Vanity Fair and Axios — otherwise I roam around.
Johan Lidberg, head of journalism at Monash University: Crikey, The Guardian, The Age, The New York Times, ABC, SBS, Politico, Politico Europe, the Swedish public service and various podcasts spanning the globe. I source my news/media directly from media orgs, not from social media.
Kate McClymont, chief investigative reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald: Increasingly, I find myself listening to podcasts as I walk the dog or get to work. The US election has provided gripping material. I have been listening to The Rest is Politics (both US and UK), The Daily (NY Times), Pod Save America, Sidebar (The Washington Post), The Intelligence (The Economist) and the Ezra Klein Show (also NYT). Locally, The Morning Edition of the SMH and The Age is great and the ABC’s Matt Bevan is a fabulous storyteller — I have really enjoyed his recent series America’s Last Election.
Joseph Friedman, managing director of About Time: I’m quite America-centric so this might not help so much. Will try Australia first:
Australia:
- Newsletters: The Legal Brief, The Paris End, Rick Morton’s Substack.
- Podcasts: The Imperfects, Conversations, 7am, The Age Real Footy Podcast.
- Magazines: The Good Weekend, The Monthly, The Quarterly, The Griffith Review.
Other:
- Newsletters: Substacks from Matthew Yglesias, Nate Silver, Anne Helen Petersen, Connie Schultz. Various NYT writers.
- Podcasts: Ezra Klein, Slate Political Gabfest, Louis Theroux, This American Life, Hidden Brain. People I (mostly) admire. The Moth.
- Magazines: The Atlantic, NYT Magazine. The New Yorker.
Leo Puglisi, founder of 6 News Australia: I think I’m obliged to say Crikey? But in this day and age it’s all just news outlets that I follow online, too many to name specifically.
Claire Stuchbery, executive director of the Local & Independent News Association: I have 135 favourite LINA member publishers — please don’t make me choose!
Eric Beecher, chairman of Private Media (publisher of Crikey):
Publications: The New York Times, The Economist, The Atlantic, The New Yorker.
Podcasts: The Rest is Politics, Fresh Air, The Daily, Planet Money, Hidden Brain. Read This, GPS with Fareed Zakaria.
Janine Perrett, journalist, broadcaster and commentator: Every morning I still get the SMH delivered to my home. I love the physical paper, which always provides something I missed online and I would pay any price not to lose that experience each day. I can’t believe I’m still lucky enough to get the paper. I read The Guardian. I also could not live without The New York Times, which has, as well as the best hard news coverage, the widest range of stories on every topic of any news service. I also read the London Daily Telegraph, which, while I don’t agree with most of their more extreme right-wing opinion pieces, has some wonderfully written pieces on a huge range of topics, especially excellent fashion and entertainment stories. I am a subscriber to the Daily Beast in the US, which has serious stories but plenty of fun ones on everything from entertainment to media and politics. I don’t do podcasts but prefer to listen to live radio in case of breaking news. I only listen to the ABC stations with a preference for News 24. I only read magazines when on holiday and then mainly Vanity Fair. But I do spend a lot of time reading overseas stories on various websites like The New Yorker or Politico. Also I read news.com.au though I have dubbed it news.comic for some of the more silly stories. It’s definitely gone downhill since they sacked the successful female editor for one of the old tabloid blokes!
Nick Feik, freelancer and former editor of The Monthly: The New York Times, New Yorker, London Review of Books, The Monthly, Saturday Paper, Bluesky, Crikey, ABC, Guardian.
Peter Hitchener, Nine News Melbourne presenter: I seldom have time to listen to podcasts but am a frequent listener to news/talk radio (3AW, ABC Radio Melbourne and ABC Radio National). I subscribe to The Age, Herald Sun, The Australian, The New York Times, Washington Post and Guardian Unlimited, keeping up with the day’s events via their apps. And I start every day with Wordle! Sometimes it takes me just as long as a podcast to figure out the answer, but it’s a habit I enjoy.
Dean Levitan, media lawyer at MinterEllison: The Age is the first website I open every morning, and I read it cover to cover every Saturday. I read fantastic daily newsletters from Capital Brief, Crikey and The Atlantic. I rarely miss an episode of the Ezra Klein podcast.
Cam Wilson, associate editor at Crikey: From the moment I wake up, I’m checking a few social media apps where I get news (this is now Bluesky, LinkedIn, maybe X/Twitter a bit). I tune into ABC radio bulletins in the morning. I visit most major Australian news websites to check out their tech sections and top headlines. I visit the Verge and 404 Media homepages, as well as check aggregated stories at Techmeme and Hacker News. I have an RSS reader that pulls in tech sections and individual journalists’ pages from major US publications like NYT, WaPo, Gizmodo, Wired, FT, etc, as well as some of Australia’s smaller tech publications like InnovationAus and Information Age. I also read blogs and newsletters including Techdirt, Stratechery, Garbage Day, Semafor and The Sizzle. And, for my sins, I listen to dumbass sports podcasts from places like the Ringer (like Bill Simmons and Ryen Russillo) to turn my brain off and occasionally work-relevant ones like Vergecast, 2SER’s Fourth Estate and Down Round. I don’t really watch any YouTube or TikTok these days although I really should, but honestly there’s really only so much content that my brain can take.
Dave Earley, audience editor at Guardian Australia: My favourite newsletters are related to audience and engagement. WTF is SEO?, Inbox Collective, Product Notes, SEO for Google News. I wish I had time to listen to podcasts… I used to, but again they were often industry ones around social media, digital news, tech. I’ll flip through the new Guardian Weekly when it arrives, but I won’t see or touch a physical newspaper more than two or three times a year, when we visit parents interstate who still get it delivered.
Rachel Withers, freelance writer:
- Podcasts: 7am, Full Story, The Rest is Politics
- Magazines: The Monthly, Meanjin
- Newsletters: Rick Morton’s, Bri Lee’s, Tim Dunlop’s, and Alex McKinnon’s
Paul Barry, former host of ABC’s Media Watch: I love the London Review of Books. Plenty of stories I have no interest in, but almost always with something brilliant, fascinating and different. The ABC. SMH. Crikey.
Jordan Baker, chief reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald: Everything and anything, really. New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic. I love The Times of London; its magazines have always been terrific. The Daily. Whatever my friends recommend. I’ve switched to ABC News Radio in the morning. And like everyone else I know, I’m really enjoying The Rest is History and its various spin-offs.
Peter Lalor, Cricket Et Al: I start with The New York Times. Until recently I read the Washington Post next but it has shat in its pants and lost me. I read Cricinfo and most cricket outlets. I love Twitter, it’s a shit pub, but I like a shit pub — admittedly it gets worse every day but it is still my favourite source of news links. Unfortunately it is fast becoming so bad even I’m looking for somewhere else to drink. I’m disillusioned with most major Australian outlets.
Sally Neighbour, former EP of ABC’s Four Corners and 7:30: I now have the luxury of being able to choose what I want to consume, rather than having to try to consume everything. I read The New York Times, because I have an abiding interest in US politics, despite/because of the election of Trump. I listen to the NYT’s Daily podcast because it gives me an easily digestible and highly engaging summary of the latest story. I get the SMH delivered daily because I still like a good old-fashioned newspaper, on paper. I read stories from The Guardian and Schwartz Media when they pop up in my Instagram feed and look interesting. I don’t watch TV news because it’s mostly boring and formulaic unless there’s a big, breaking story.
Nic Christensen, former head of corporate communications at SBS and head of corporate affairs at Nine: I love Evan Shapiro’s Media War & Peace for its future-focused lens on how media is evolving, Oliver Darcy’s new Status newsletter is a great lens on the US media/journalism. I’m also doing more work in the creator space, so I am regularly consuming US outlets that give a lens on social media and the US creator economy such as ICYMI, Passionfruit, Tubefilter.
Lisa Davies, CEO of AAP: I’ve been far too obsessed with the intricacies of the US election in recent months for my answers to this question to be representative, so let’s just say my media diet is wide and varied, and subject to the biggest stories of the news cycle!
Paul Bongiorno, political journalist: Old habits die hard: ABC RN and News Radio and TV Sky Agenda (all in daylight hours). The SMH, Crikey, Schwartz Media products, especially the 7am podcast, The Saturday Paper and The Monthly. As a tragic from way back, I monitor the political reports on all of the network TV news bulletins and current affairs programs.
Apart from that I have a life in my garden.
