Many Australians, including Bill Shorten are now seeing News Corp is no ordinary news company. Retired award-winning journalist for The Australian Tony Koch has let loose on his former paper in recent days saying “no editor I worked for would have put up with the biased anti-Labor rubbish that, shamefully, the papers now produce on a daily basis.” Similar concerns have been voiced by business commentator Alan Kohler and journalist Rick Morton who told a group of students the “craziness has been dialled up”. But when did the flip from serious news outlet to attack dog take place? Was it really so recent?

In 2017, Crikey published Holy Wars, reports on how a serious newspaper, The Australian, pursues its enemies from Tim Flannery to Yassmin Abdel-Magied. The playbook for these attacks isn’t new. However its possible they’ve gotten bolder.

Make your own mind up.

Read our series Holy Wars here.