If for some reason you find yourself with no choice but to read Crikey’s competitors — perhaps leafing through an edition left behind on a train, reading the wrapper used for cheap fish and chips or while mopping up after a pet — you might see that many of them are obsessed with measuring and ranking people on various metrics.
There’s the Power List, the Top 100 Innovators, the Rich List, 30 under 30. The list(s) go on. Each one is more sycophantic than the last.
For people unfamiliar with what it’s like to run a news outlet in 2024, we’ll let you in on a secret: these lists mostly exist to convince the elites who have shrinking reasons to deal with the mainstream media to please, please, please give us access through obsequious flattery.
In return, the Fourth Estate is reduced to doing PR for the people it is supposed to hold to account. It publishes fawning hagiographies that bear even less resemblance to reality than the glossy, edited images from the photoshoots that accompany them.
Us? Crikey does not respect money or status. There is only one thing — a value, an essence, a vibe — that we value here at Crikey HQ. The highest, most noble honour that we can bestow on anyone is considering them a shitstirrer.
Shitstirrer has a handful of slightly different definitions. Crikey’s version is someone who is a nuisance to powerful people. But it has a few other elements, too.
A shitstirrer is prone to causing trouble by “making known facts that they would prefer to keep secret”, according to the Cambridge English Dictionary. They “take pleasure in causing trouble”, per the Oxford English Dictionary. They flip power dynamics, they make noise and waves, and they can be motivated by any reason — sympathetic or not.
A shitstirrer doesn’t have to be someone whom you like or agree with. They don’t punch down. They can have some power, but not as much as the people or causes they target. And they’re not a troll just for the sake of getting attention. A shitstirrer has a mission and they’ll do anything to achieve it.
Put simply: a shitstirrer is someone who makes life hell for the people on those other lists.
For this first time, Crikey is going to publish our Shitstirrers List: an index of the people who stirred the most shit in Australia this year. We have a team of judges poring over records, speaking to sources and looking deep into their souls to figure out who really pissed off people in the right way this year.
But before we pull it all together, we wanted to ask for your nominations: who do you think has been a shitstirrer this year? Fill out the form below or leave a comment.
