Ex-Sky News Australia host and former co-host of The Project Peter van Onselen has joined Daily Mail Australia as political editor, just over a year after leaving the same role at Network Ten.
During his time off-air van Onselen was sued by Ten for breach of contract after referring to his former employer as “the minnow of Australian commercial television” in an article for The Australian about the company’s financial woes. He has continued to pen articles for the paper since.
The onetime Liberal adviser signed a non-disparagement clause as part of a $71,000 redundancy agreement after leaving the network, which he told the court he didn’t read before signing. Van Onselen was found in breach of contract and ordered to pay Ten’s legal costs.
Van Onselen is an industry veteran, and has spent more than two decades in politics and journalism academia on top of his media obligations. But it’s safe to say Daily Mail Australia adopts a different tone to the outlets he’s worked at previously.
At the time of writing, Daily Mail Australia’s trending Australian politics section featured articles such as “The correct way to pronounce Anthony Albanese’s Italian last name” and “Annastacia Palaszczuk shares meal and wine with surgeon boyfriend”. The top story was an article from the last federal election about how the eastern European nation of Albania was “DELIGHTED” at Labor’s win, because Albanese “means Albanian in Italian”.
Indeed, at a recent panel on the use of generative AI in journalism, Daily Mail Australia’s executive editor Barclay Crawford went in to bat for what was described by ABC news boss Justin Stevens as “junk journalism” that was “chasing views over trust”. In claiming that media companies “need eyeballs” and “a lot of stuff people read isn’t great investigative journalism”, Crawford went on to claim Google Search was skewed in favour of left-leaning outlets such as Guardian Australia.
Van Onselen has not been immune to Daily Mail Australia’s particular style of reporting. At the last federal election, the outlet ran a story about van Onselen’s incorrect predictions, the headline for which asked whether he had “the kiss of death”. The publication also ran multiple stories on van Onselen’s on-air admission he had forgotten to vote.
Crikey contacted van Onselen about why he took the job, whether he was looking to improve Daily Mail Australia’s coverage, and whether there had been any conversations with Daily Mail Australia as to whether he does indeed have “the kiss of death”. Crikey also asked whether he would continue his teaching positions — van Onselen is listed as the unit coordinator for a masters-level course at The University of Western Australia called “The Business of Politics”, and is also a professor of policy at Griffith University.
Van Onselen did not respond in time for publication.
