When one of Australia’s most popular political columns changed hands late last year, few could have predicted it would unravel so quickly in a situation insiders describe as “shambolic”.
Within a few months, its star writer spectacularly quit, while her salary, and those of two other senior staff members, remains unpaid by progressive media mogul Piers Grove’s company General Publishing.
In late 2023, The Politics was one of Schwartz Media’s most-read media properties with around 27,000 email subscribers to the free column and a dedicated readership, many of whom were devotees of its flagship columnist Rachel Withers.
In the months since, Schwartz Media, which owns The Saturday Paper and The Monthly, sold the column to General
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