Upheaval: Disrupted Lives in Journalism Book Launch

Upheaval is about what’s happened in Australian journalism over the past decade. Newsrooms, the engine rooms of reporting, have shrunk. A generation of journalists has borne witness to seismic changes in the media. Sharing stories from more than 50 Australian journalists – including Amanda Meade, David Marr and Flip Prior – Upheaval reveals the highs and the lows of those who were there to see it all.

They show us life inside frenetic and vibrant newsrooms at the peak of their influence, and the difficulties of adapting to ever-accelerating news cycles with fewer resources. Some left journalism altogether while others stayed in the media – or sought to reinvent it. Normally the ones telling other people’s stories, in Upheaval journalists share the rawness of losing their own job or watching others lose theirs. They reveal their anxieties and hopes for the industry’s future and their commitment to reporting news that matters.

Journalist and legal commentator, Richard Ackland, will launch the book. After completing a law degree Richard Ackland began his career in the media in the 1970s with The Australian Financial Review before moving to the ABC where he hosted radio programs as well as ABC television’s Media Watch. Along with Deborah Richards and Anne Connolly, he exposed the cash for comment scandal on Media Watch, winning a Gold Walkley award. Since the 1980s he has been the publisher of Justinian and the Gazette of Law and Journalism. He has been a columnist on legal issues for The Age and more recently The Saturday Paper and Guardian Australia.

Academic and journalist, Matthew Ricketson will join a discussion featuring Amanda Meade of Guardian Australia, one of the many journalists interviewed for Upheaval and Dr Penny O’Donnell, a member of the New Beats project team. Andrew Dodd, one of the book’s co-editors, will be MC.

Matthew has run journalism programs at three universities and since 2017 has headed the Communications area at Deakin University. He has worked on staff at The Age, The Australian and Time Australia magazine. He is the author of three books and editor of three more. He is the co-author, with Patrick Mullins, of Who Needs the ABC? Why taking it for granted is no longer an option, to be published in April 2022 by Scribe.

This event is supported by the Walkley Foundation, Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance, Deakin University, NewSouth Publishing, the University of Melbourne and the Judith Neilson Institute.