The ex-PM’s phantom ministries is shaping up as the biggest Australian political story in recent history. So why was the media slow to run with it?
What just happened in Australian politics? Suddenly, an Australian story, one without crocodiles or boxing kangaroos, has broken out as world news. Huh? Yet here we are, with the Morrison cabinet-of-one story, two years old and weird enough to become the quirky story of the week for international media.
Was it because the two journalists from The Australian had caught that very American virus of holding a good story to sell a book after the event? Or was it just the all-too-Australian practice of missing the story that’s right in front of you?
There’s been plenty of online angst: how could journalists sit on a story this big for so long? Is this a News Corp conspiracy? Not this time, no. There’s a bigger story: how did traditional media miss the story’s significance even when it landed right in front of them — in 2020 and again this past weekend?