AustraliaPoliticsOverlooked from the right16 days ago

How One Nation wins when News Corp’s ‘Bush Summit’ panders to regional grievance

The article discusses how News Corp's decision to stop publishing regional newspapers during the 2020 pandemic created a vacuum in local news coverage, which was subsequently filled by misinformation spread through platforms like Facebook. This environment allowed Pauline Hanson's One Nation party to gain influence, supported by Sky News' regional broadcasts.

News Corp is largely responsible for shutting down local media voices across Australia, leaving a hole to be filled by fake news on Facebook. But here it is again: Bush Summit 2026.

Jun 5, 2026

4 min read

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, Daily Tele editor Ben English, Gina Rinehart and Lachlan Murdoch (Image: Private Media/Zennie)

It takes a certain cynical chutzpah to wrap yourself around a “Bush Summit” when you’re largely responsible for shutting down one of the key industries which sustained life in regional and rural Australia — local media voices.

But that’s News Corp, for you: the company that turned Australia’s diverse regional landscape into news-light — often news-free — zones when it stopped printing most of its regional and community papers under cover of the COVID-19 shutdown in 2020.

And as the American company shut off regional Australian news — the communication and transparency lifeblood of many towns — it opened the door to the fake news, Facebook-powered surge of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, backed up by its regional broadcast of Sky News, supplanting genuine local news with national, city-based pandering.

Read the full article at Crikey →

Source document: News Corp's cessation of regional newspaper publications during the 2020 pandemic

1 reports

CrikeyIndependentLeft16 days ago

How One Nation wins when News Corp’s ‘Bush Summit’ panders to regional grievance

Bias read (Left): The article criticizes News Corp for its role in reducing local media presence and links this to the rise of One Nation, implying a negative view of corporate media consolidation and suggesting that the resulting information gap enabled populist politics. The tone is critical of News Corp's actions,

Official sources cited

organisation News Corp's cessation of regional newspaper publications during the 2020 pandemic
organisation Sky News regional broadcasts

Go to the primary sources (2)

The official sources this coverage is built on. Read them directly to bypass framing.

organisationNews Corp's cessation of regional newspaper publications during the 2020 pandemic
organisationSky News regional broadcasts