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Abstract
Despite its very small audience, Sky News (to date, Australia's only locally-produced 24-hour news channel) has recently become an important player in the Australian politics/media landscape. In 2007, Sky had a series of successes including hosting the only leaders’ debate of the federal election and being the first channel to predict and announce the election outcome. More broadly, Sky is having a significant impact on the way in which news is reported in Australia. It has become a key journalistic source and has encouraged a faster, longer news cycle and a digital newsroom, content-packaging approach to journalism. Sky is also influencing the behaviour of Australian politicians, increasing their sensitivity to media coverage and prevailing news values and acting as a key site where they try to influence broader media reporting but also shape political outcomes such as leadership battles. This article examines these factors and considers the nature of the “elite–elite communication” that is taking place via Sky News (Davis, Citation2007, p. 73).
Acknowledgements
This research was supported under the Australian Research Council's Discovery funding scheme (project number DP0663208). The author wishes to thank Stephanie Younane for her research assistance and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions. Thanks are also due to Sky News CEO, Angelos Frangopoulos, and Sky News political editor, David Speers, who generously gave their time for interviews. This acknowledgement does not imply that they would necessarily agree with the conclusions drawn by the author and any errors of fact or interpretation are her responsibility.
Notes
1. Recently, Rupert Murdoch disclosed another reason—his son's reluctance to heed his wishes. Murdoch said that he did want Sky News to be more like Fox News in the United States but “no one listens to him at Sky” (his son James is BSkyB's Chief Executive) (Gibson, 2007, p. 21).
2. A similar argument has long been posited in Australia in relation to Murdoch's start-up of the broadsheet The Australian newspaper and the late Kerry Packer's fondness for, and support of, The Bulletin magazine and the Sunday TV program which both focused on politics and national affairs (and are now both defunct following Packer's death and his son's sale of elements of PBL to a private equity firm).