Australian Financial Review
The Australian Financial Review (AFR) is an Australian business-focused, compact daily newspaper covering the current business and economic affairs of Australia and the world. The newspaper is based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; owned by Nine Entertainment and has been published continuously since its founding in 1951. The AFR, along with the rest of Fairfax Media (aside from some publications which were sold to Australian Community Media), was sold to Nine Entertainment for more than A$2.3 billion.[2] The AFR is published in tabloid format six times a week, whilst providing 24/7 online coverage through its website. In November 2019, the AFR reached 2.647 million Australians through both print and digital mediums (Mumbrella).[3]
Type
The Australian Financial Review started as a print-only weekly newspaper in 1951, before changing to a bi-weekly in 1961, and a daily newspaper in 1963. The paper now publishes multiple magazines and a supplementary weekend paper, which was launched in 1995. In that same year, the AFR website was also released, which helped to expand its readership base across all media.[4]
Reporting[edit]
Reporting stance[edit]
During 1975 to 1983, when The Australian widely articulated its political stance on conservative liberalism, it had been noted that the AFR also promoted neo-liberalism through its news coverage and editorials, exerting influence on the business sphere of Australia and its elitist readership base.[32] The newspaper has also been labelled as one of the propagators of radical liberalism during the 1970s – 1980s, shaping the policy debate surrounding market deregulation at that time.[32] This was in line with the overarching political stance of all Fairfax Holdings owned newspapers, including The Sydney Morning Herald, which in the 1970s was also right-leaning in its political views.[33] However, contrasting to The Australian, the AFR was still perceived as a newspaper with a strong sense of integrity in reporting facts, despite its editorial style leaning towards conservative business ideals.
In the wake of the 1987 stock market crash, the Australian news media sector was blamed for overlooking corporate corruption and wrongdoings, whilst publishing primarily favourable news articles handed to them from corporate PR teams.[6] Also during this time, The National Times whIch was Australia's leading financial investigative journalism newspaper, shut down after the stock market crash. So during the 2000s, following the financial market failures and economic downturn of the 1990s, the AFR's reporting focus steered more towards business investigative journalism, scrutinising big corporations, government power and corruption.[6] This was viewed as the AFR making reparations for its lack of scrutiny over the corporate sector in the lead-up to the stock market crash.
One major factor that allowed the AFR to undertake deep corporate investigations was that it did not need advertising revenue to stay afloat – its cover price was sufficient. On the other hand, all other daily mastheads needed company advertising to stay profitable. This afforded the AFR's editors the flexibility to pursue and publish news articles that shed a negative light on major companies without needing to be concerned about its financial impacts.
In the early 2010s, the AFR's political stance has been labelled as neutral.[34] During the controversial 2013 tax debate regarding taxes for 'extraordinary' profits generated by mining companies, major mastheads from regions with high mining interests had almost four-fold the number of negative articles compared to positive articles. The Australian, the biggest national daily, had a large number of both positive and negative articles, but had a limited number of neutral articles. Out of all the daily mastheads, the AFR published the most articles surrounding the tax debate and also the most number of neutral articles.[34]
Notable reporting[edit]
In November 2023, the AFR joined with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Paper Trail Media and 69 media partners including Distributed Denial of Secrets and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and more than 270 journalists in 55 countries and territories[35][36] to produce the 'Cyprus Confidential' report on the financial network which supports the regime of Vladimir Putin, mostly with connections to Cyprus, and showed Cyprus to have strong links with high-up figures in the Kremlin, some of whom have been sanctioned.[37][38] Government officials including Cyprus president Nikos Christodoulides[39] and European lawmakers[40] began responding to the investigation's findings in less than 24 hours,[41] calling for reforms and launching probes.[42][43]