- Professor of Journalism, Media and Communication, Queensland University of Technology
The most recent ABC circulation figures for Australia’s newspapers show a continuing decline in print sales across the board. That isn’t surprising, given global and national trends over the last few years…
Malcolm Turnbull has urged ABC journalists to adopt a “less aggressive and more forensic” style of political interviewing. The fact that he made this request on The Bolt Report, Australia’s home of Fox…
The Murdoch press strategy of supporting the Conservatives in England and the SNP in Scotland reflected a common interest in denying Labour government in the UK election.
The producers of this series are doing what public service media are tasked to do – making the marginal visible, including the excluded, putting poverty on the public agenda.
There have been executions of Australians for drug offences before. In 1986 Kevin Barlow and Brian Chambers were hung in Malaysia for trafficking heroin. Van Tuong Nguyen was hanged in Singapore in 2005…
It’s been a week of trauma and tragedy on many levels. One good news story stands out, though: the life sentences passed on those who attempted to murder the young pro-education activist Malala Yousafzai…
I had some airtime on 2UE the other night, to talk about why we blame the media for everything. ‘We’ being politicians angry that their messages are not - as they see it – getting across. Journalists…
The Australian’s Melissa Hoyes reported the other day on Sydney Fashion Week, and how the “ongoing digital revolution” is impacting on a creative industry for which innovation is core. Not very well, it…
On Sunday I came across an article in the International Business Times, reporting a posthumous publication by slain Charlie Hebdo editorial director Stephane Charbonnier. The book, completed two days before…
The government’s ‘no jab, no pay’ policy, which will restrict childcare benefits for those parents who refuse to have their kids immunised, may seem harsh to some. Most parents, however, will see the wisdom…
The following is an edited version of a submission to the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee with reference to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Amendment (Local Content) Bill 2014…
Our journalists come in for a lot of stick, what with accusations of political bias from politicians, intrusions on privacy from celebrities, or ‘dumbing down’ of the culture in general. But Peter Greste’s…
The Scottish independence referendum held in September 2014 provoked a public debate of unprecedented intensity and divisiveness in Scotland. Polls indicated a very close outcome and the real possibility…
Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull earlier this week linked the Liberals’ leadership crisis to “bullying” by journalists covering Australian politics. He was not suggesting, I don’t think, that the…
Australia’s loudest radio shock jock, Alan Jones, has launched an extraordinary attack on the Queensland premier, claiming Campbell Newman visited him at home at the urging of senior Liberals and promised…
Trust Rupert to get new media wrong. Respect, boss, but when the entire freedom-loving world is united in condemnation of the Charlie Hebdo killers and the extremist ideology which inspired them, why take…
The French writer Michel Houellebecq once referred to Islam as “the stupidest religion”. Speaking as an equal opportunities atheist born and raised into the weird and wonderful ways of Catholicism, I can…
Alan Rusbridger, who has announced that he is leaving the editorship of The Guardian after 20 years in 2015, will be remembered as one of that great newspaper’s greatest editors. Always ahead of the game…
While Australia’s elected representatives argue over what then-opposition leader Tony Abbott meant when he promised “no cuts to the ABC, or SBS” the night before the last election, directly to the electorate…
Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has announced a further cut to Australia’s public broadcasters. The ABC’s budget will be slashed around 4.6% per year, or A$254 million in total, over the next…
Mr Murdoch is reported to be smiling once more, or at least his investors are. News Corp’s shares are up nearly 7% on the back of increased revenues and earnings from book publishing, education and realestate.com.au…
Senator Nova Peris’ current travails around the NT News’ publication of intimate emails are a reminder to politicians and public figures everywhere that, like it or not, in today’s news culture there is…
Having worked as a journalism and media studies academic in the United Kingdom for the best part of 25 years, one of the things that surprised me on coming to Australia was the state of near-open warfare…
On the day that the ABC released the results of a Newspoll survey on attitudes to the corporation, managing director Mark Scott addressed students at QUT with the message, ‘It’s our ABC’! ‘Us’ being the…
MH17 is not the first civilian airliner to have been destroyed in flight by weapons of war. There have been accidental shoot-downs before: the Korean Airlines disaster of 1983, the Iranian Airlines shoot…
Contact Brian for
- General
- Media request
- Speaking request
- Consulting / Advising
- Research collaboration
- Research supervision
- Location: Brisbane, Australia
- X (formerly Twitter): @brianmcnair
- Article Feed
-
- Joined




















