Media Monsters (Sally Young, NewSouth)

After breaking through to the mainstream with her 2019 Stella Prize-longlisted book Paper Emperors, academic Sally Young continues to expose the dark interplay between Australian media and politics with Media Monsters. It’s strange to think that if Ben Chifley hadn’t rashly announced intentions to nationalise Australian banks in 1947, thus galvanising the uniformly conservative and self-interested newspaper barons into united action, the entire media and political landscape of not just Australia but the entire world may have been completely different. There may not even have been a Liberal Party. Who knows, Trump may never have been president! These are the sorts of intriguing speculations that you can’t help but ponder upon reading about the extraordinary machinations of the handful of men who controlled our media empires in the 20th century. Not that Young makes any such broad claims—she just expertly lays out the facts with astonishing detail, capturing the manipulation and wily business moves over generations (including those of the Murdochs and the Packers) in such clear and entertaining prose that it’s difficult to stop reading. It makes you wish you could jump into your DeLorean and make a few tweaks. Things got even worse when these same men got their hands on the new technology, television—no other country allowed such a small group of massively wealthy newspaper barons such complete control of the new media. How this all happened, and the effects on our society, is an absorbing, if salutary, history lesson.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Julia Taylor worked in trade publishing for many years. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

Category: Reviews