Journalism in Australia
Open-knowledge reference entry
Journalism has an extensive history in Australia. Reporters Without Borders placed Australia 26th on a list of 180 countries ranked by press freedom in 2020, ahead of both the United Kingdom and United States. Most print media in the country is owned by either News Corp Australia or Nine Entertainment.
History
Most of the published material in the first twenty years of the New South Wales colony was to inform residents of the rules and laws of the time. These were printed with a portable wooden and iron printing press. Since half of the convicts of the time were not able to read, it was compulsory for these notices to be read at Sunday church services.
On 22 November 1800, George Howe arrived in Australia. Nicknamed "Happy", Howe was born in the West Indies, although his father had been a native of Ireland. In London, Howe had worked in the print industry for several newspapers including The Times, but was sent to New South Wales after being charged with shoplifting, a crime which was also punishable by hanging.
In 1803, Howe started production on Australia's first newspaper, the Sydney Gazette.
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This entry incorporates text from “Journalism in Australia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.