Bridget Griffen-Foley

Bridget Griffen-Foley is a Professor of Media at Macquarie University, where she founded the Centre for Media History. She is the author of The House of Packer (1999), Sir Frank Packer: A biography (2000, 2014), Party Games: Australian politicians and the media from war to Dismissal (2003), Changing Stations: The story of Australian commercial radio (2009) and Australian Radio Listeners and Television Viewers: Historical perspectives (2020). She edited A Companion to the Australian Media (2014), now available on AustLit.

Bridget Griffen-Foley reviews 'Compulsive Viewing' by Gerald Stone

October 2000, no. 225 • 01 October 2000

If Gerald Stone had gone to a publisher with a proposal for a book about Channel Seven or Channel Ten, it is doubtful whether it would ever have seen the light of day. But Stone – who would have endured more than a few pitches in his time as a television executive – had the sense to propose a book about his former employer, Channel Nine, and Compulsive Viewing is the result. The Nine Network ... (read more)

Bridget Griffen-Foley reviews 'The Murdoch Archipelago' by Bruce Page

November 2003, no. 256 • 01 November 2003

Rupert Murdoch certainly attracts a good class of biographer. There was George Munster, who contributed so much to Australian politics and culture by helping to establish and edit Nation, and William Shawcross, one of Britain’s most prominent journalists. There were other biographies, too, before the efforts of Bruce Page, a distinguished investigative journalist with the London Sunday Times, wh ... (read more)

Bridget Griffen-Foley reviews 'Stop the Presses! How greed, incompetence (and the internet) wrecked Fairfax' by Ben Hills

October 2014, no. 365 • 01 October 2014

Fairfax Media, which has churned out millions of words since its beginnings in Sydney in the 1830s, has itself inspired hundreds of thousands of words in the last year or so. First came Colleen Ryan’s Fairfax: The Rise and Fall (June 2013), followed by Pamela Williams’ Killing Fairfax (July 2013). Now comes Stop the Presses! by Ben Hills, a veteran investigative journalist who would no doubt s ... (read more)