Paper Chase

“A lack of balanced research into the press in Australia has been a problem for media-watchers and media students for many years. The 1981 Norris Inquiry into the ownership and control of newspapers in Victoria changed this. It provided the first semi-judicial test of evidence on the press in Victoria – and, to some extent, the press in Australia.
It ahs also provided the springboard for this book by Les Carlyon.
Carlyon, a former editor of The Age, has examined more than two million words of evidence from the Norris Inquiry.
Paperchase, The Press Under Examination, looks at the evidence, sifts it, challenges some of it, and relates it all to the ethical issues faced by the press around the world today. But it isn’t just a book about the Norris Inquiry. Carlyon takes his readers back to Daniel Defoe’s pamphlets, to the heyday of Northcliffe, Beaverbrook, David Syme and Keith Murdoch and onward to present-day publishers. This 400-page book does not espouse the cause of the newspaper publisher; nor does it embrace the press conspiracy theory. It’s a warts-and-all look at our press.”