Michael West (born 28 August 1962) is an Australian

investigative journalist Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years rese ...

. He is the founder of MichaelWestMedia, a

news website An online newspaper (or electronic news or electronic news publication) is the online version of a newspaper, either as a stand-alone publication or as the online version of a printed periodical. Going online created more opportunities for newspa ...

specialising in investigative journalism in the areas of business, finance, tax, and energy.

Early life and education

West is the son of the late Rod West, a former headmaster of Trinity Grammar School in Sydney. His sister is

Catherine West Catherine Elizabeth West (born 14 September 1966) is a Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom. She was first elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Hornsey and Wood Green in May 2015. Early life and education West was born on 14 ...

, a British MP. Prior to journalism, West worked for a number of years as a stockbroker. In November 2016, he received the honorary title of adjunct professor from the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's ...

Journalism career

West's career in journalism began at ''

The Australian Financial Review ''The Australian Financial Review'' (abbreviated to the ''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 Sou ...

''. He later wrote a column at

The Australian ''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition, ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964.Bruns, Axel. "3.1. The active audience: Transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatew ...

newspaper titled 'Margin Call', for which he was praised by the founder of

Crikey Crikey is an Australian electronic magazine comprising a website and email newsletter available to subscribers. Crikey was described by the former Federal Opposition Leader Mark Latham as the "most popular website in Parliament House" in '' T ...

, Stephen Mayne; as being 'one of the few financial journalists out there having a go at some of the business practices employed by the likes of

Macquarie Bank Macquarie Group Limited () is an Australian global financial services group. Headquartered and listed in Australia (), Macquarie employs more than 17,000 staff in 33 markets, is the world's largest infrastructure asset manager and Australia's t ...

and Babcock & Brown'. In 2005, he won the business journalism

Walkley Award The annual Walkley Awards are presented in Australia to recognise and reward excellence in journalism. They cover all media including print, television, documentary, radio, photographic and online media. The Gold Walkley is the highest prize and ...

for his article at

titled "Allstate". He later became business editor and commentator at the Sydney Morning Herald. At the SMH his writing was particularly focused upon the Australian tax interests of multinational companies including

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

, and

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

. His stories about tax evasion by multinationals, and corruption in the Australian electricity sector contributed to the establishment of two Senate Inquiries. In May 2016, West was part of an estimated 30 forced redundancies made by

Fairfax Media Fairfax Media was a media company in Australia and New Zealand, with investments in newspaper, magazines, radio and digital properties. The company was founded by John Fairfax as John Fairfax and Sons, who purchased ''The Sydney Morning Herald' ...

. In an interview, West described the situation at Fairfax as 'grim' and accused the publisher of pursuing a click-bait strategy.

Links

MichaelWest.com.au

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:West, Michael 1962 births Australian journalists Australian newspaper editors Living people Australian newspaper publishers (people) The Sydney Morning Herald people