Australian journalist and author
James Massola
is an Australian journalist and author, currently the National Affairs Editor for
The Age
and
The Sydney Morning Herald
.
[1]
Early life
[
edit
]
Massola grew up in
Melbourne
,
Victoria
and graduated from
Xavier College
, and then
Monash University
with a master's degree in International Relations.
[2]
His great uncle is
Aldo Massola
, the anthropologist, author and museum curator.
Career
[
edit
]
He moved to
Canberra
in 2007 and worked in the
Canberra Press Gallery
for 10 years, mostly for
Fairfax Media
. He began working for
The Age
and the
Sydney Morning Herald
in January 2014.
In October 2017, he announced via Twitter that he was leaving the job of chief political correspondent and in 2018 took up the job of south-east Asia correspondent for the newspapers.
[3]
In November 2018,
Allen and Unwin
published his first book,
The Great Cave Rescue
, about the
rescue of the Wild Boars football team
from the
Tham Luang
cave in Thailand in July 2018.
[4]
The book was published by
Duckworth Books
in the UK in October 2019.
[5]
Outing of Greg Jericho
[
edit
]
During the campaign for the
2010 federal election
, ABC managing director Mark Scott cited a posting by
Greg Jericho
in a speech on the topic of the media coverage of the election.
[6]
Jericho's opinion was that coverage of the election had been driven by
polls
rather than policy, and that the public interest was suffering as a result. At the same time, Jericho attended and live-blogged the "
media140
" conference, which was also attended News Limited journalist James Massola. During the conference, Massola and Jericho were seated at the same table, although Jericho states that the two did not speak on the day.
On 27 September, Massola wrote an article in
The Australian
entitled "
Controversial political blogger unmasked as a federal public servant
". In it, Massola revealed Jericho's real name and that he was an employee of the Australian Public Service, justifying the outing on the grounds that "The prolific blogger shows a strong preference for the ALP, despite the Public Service code of conduct stating that "the APS is apolitical"".
[7]
In a follow-up article on 28 September, Massola expanded further on his reasons for naming Jericho, claiming that "the fact he had a partisan point of view, worked in the public service and wrote about his department was a matter of public interest" and "Jericho's decision to 'live blog' the Media 140 conference (was it a sick day, a day in lieu, annual leave, did he clear it with his supervisor?) made my mind up."
Massola's article attracted a mixed response, some critical and some supportive.
[8]
[9]
Bernard Keane wrote in
Crikey
that rather than discuss the content of Jericho's blog, Massola had just launched "a malicious, hypocritical ad hominem attack on him" and pointed out the hypocrisy of The Australian running anonymous opinion columns itself.
[10]
ABC journalist Jonathon Green opined that "Jericho made the fatal mistake of making them angry, of impugning the conduct of Australian journalism during an election campaign in which the media slowly became a significant part of the story; not so much for what it did but for the debate it let rot and degenerate. Outing him is payback",
[11]
while journalist Tim Dunlop argued that "It is not their [
The Australian'
s] role to deprive someone of their privacy when they are engaged in a legal activity".
[12]
James Paterson wrote that Massola's article was "a legitimate story in the public interest".
[8]
Awards
[
edit
]
Massola was a finalist in the
Walkley
awards for journalism
[13]
for reporting with
Peter Hartcher
a detailed leak from former Australian Prime Minister
Tony Abbott
's cabinet.
[14]
In 2016 he was a finalist in the
Quills
for the
David Feeney
residence scandal
[15]
[16]
and in 2017 he was part of the team that won the Grant Hattam Quill award for investigative journalism into the
Sam Dastyari
Chinese influence story, involving
Huang Xiangmo
.
[17]
[18]
In 2019 he was named "outstanding foreign correspondent" in the Kennedy Awards.
[19]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"James Massola"
.
Sydney Morning Herald
. Retrieved
17 September
2023
.
- ^
Monash University (7 January 2016).
"James Massola ? Master of International Relations alumnus"
.
Monash University
.
- ^
Twitter
[1]
"move to Jakarta"
- ^
"Allen & Unwin - Australia"
.
www.allenandunwin.com
. Retrieved
7 June
2024
.
- ^
"The Great Cave Rescue"
.
Duckworth Books
. Retrieved
7 June
2024
.
- ^
Scott, Mark (2 September 2010).
"The Quest for Truth: Quality Journalism and a 21st Century ABC"
(PDF)
.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
. Retrieved
11 June
2011
.
- ^
Massola, James (27 September 2010).
"Controversial political blogger unmasked as a federal public servant"
.
The Australian
.
Archived
from the original on 23 April 2011
. Retrieved
11 June
2011
.
- ^
a
b
Paterson, James (18 October 2010). "Blogger's unmasking triggers yawn-inducing Murdoch rants".
The Australian
. p. 32.
- ^
Cunningham, Sophie (15 May 2011). "Nameless, not always shameless".
Sunday Age
. p. 21.
- ^
Keane, Bernard (27 September 2010).
"The whys and wherefores of bureaucratic blogging"
.
Crikey
.
Archived
from the original on 4 December 2010
. Retrieved
11 June
2011
.
- ^
Green, Jonathon (29 September 2010).
"Bullet by bullet, the bloggers win the war"
.
ABC Online
.
Archived
from the original on 30 December 2010
. Retrieved
11 June
2011
.
- ^
Dunlop, Tim.
"Privacy is not a gift for journalists to bestow or withdraw"
.
Archived
from the original on 31 August 2011
. Retrieved
11 June
2011
.
- ^
"Walkley Finalists 2015"
. Archived from
the original
on 19 August 2017
. Retrieved
31 August
2018
.
- ^
Cabinet revolt over Tony Abbott and Peter Dutton plan to strip Australians of citizenship
[2]
- ^
Quills 2016
- ^
"Election 2016: David Feeney didn't declare $2.3m house and 'doesn't know' if it's negatively geared"
By James Massola, Richard Willingham and Fergus Hunter, May 17, 2016
- ^
"The Age dominates the Quill Awards"
.
The Age
. 16 March 2018
. Retrieved
7 June
2024
.
- ^
"Labor senator Sam Dastyari warned wealthy Chinese donor Huang Xiangmo his phone was bugged"
By Nick McKenzie, James Massola and Richard Baker
smh.com.au
, November 29, 2017
- ^
Saulwick, Jacob (9 August 2019).
"Sydney Morning Herald snares five Kennedy Awards as ABC takes out top prize"
.
The Sydney Morning Herald
. Retrieved
7 June
2024
.