Michael West is an independent journalist and owner of Michael West Media.
Since 2016, Michael has achieved the extraordinary feat of running his own independent Australian media company, Michael West Media. The decision to start his own company and take on the highly concentrated Australia media market dominated by big players came after he was made redundant by then-Fairfax’s Sydney Morning Herald.
As we discuss in our interview, running a media organisation is no easy task and Michael puts in incredibly long hours to make the business work. He commission, publishes, and sometimes researches and writes stories himself, all while doing HR, business finances, and fending off regular defamation threats.
The business model, which he admits isn’t a huge money-maker, has nevertheless seen him build a growing audience across multiple platforms, a success he puts down to the failure of the mainstream media to engage in hard-hitting investigative journalism untainted by vested interests.
Before going on his own Michael had decades of experience as a business journalist at both The Australian Financial Review and The Australian.
As a journalist and then editor at The Sydney Morning-Herald Michael made a name for himself exposing multinational tax avoidance by big companies, which led to a senate inquiry and an overhaul of the tax system in Australia which brought in billions of dollars in previously unpaid taxes. Michael explains his lifelong fascination with business journalism has all been to do with exposing the scam – now a regular topic he writes about on his site.
Our conversation touches...
💻 How Michael handles running his own small media company doing everything from HR to researching and publishing stories and dealing with defamation threats
🗒 How an accidental cadetship at The Australian Financial Review nurtured his interest in business journalism and exposing ‘scams'
⚖ Why Michael thinks identity politics is a danger for democracy and why the media has failed here.
📰 How Michael’s experience as a stockbroker helped him at The Australian newspaper writing his column, Margin Call, where he wrote often satirical pieces about dodgy business people.
💵 Michael’s expose’s on multinational tax avoiders in Australia which led to a widely covered senate inquiry and massive change.
👨💼 And how the failure of the mainstream media has created opportunities for small independent creators like Michael.
For a full episode transcript and links to Michael's work visit our website: http://bylinespodcast.com
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Sound production by Jonathan Koster: https://www.instagram.com/djjonnysounds