Paul Sheehan (journalist)

Paul Sheehan (born 1951) is an Australian columnist and former senior writer for the Sydney Morning Herald, and the Melbourne Age where he has been day editor, chief of staff and Washington correspondent. He generally writes from a conservative viewpoint in the opinion of observers.[1]

Early life and education

Sheehan is a graduate of the Australian National University in Canberra and the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University in New York.

Career

Sheehan was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly and Foreign Policy.[2]

Sheehan's first book, Among the Barbarians, was published in 1998. The book, written by Sheehan to "lift the veil of intimidation" hanging over critical discussion of multiculturalism and Australia's immigration policies, spent five months on Australian best-seller lists.[3] In 2003, he released his second book, The Electronic Whorehouse, a critical examination of the media in Australia. His third book, Girls Like You (2005), commented on the Ashfield gang rapes, a series of gang rape trials in Australia involving four Pakistani brothers.

Commentary

Sheehan's columns in the Sydney Morning Herald are generally written from a right-wing perspective and are noted for their criticism of the "human rights industry", Muslims in Australia, large-scale immigration and the Australian Labor Party. Other topics covered by Sheehan include criticism of the Australian legal system's handling of sexual assault cases as well as criticism of the neo-conservative ideology.

On 24 February 2016, Sheehan published a column in the Sydney Morning Herald titled, 'The story of Louise: we'll never know the scale of the rape epidemic in Sydney', which described the horrific rape of a nurse in the Inner City of Sydney in 2002.[4] He subsequently published a retraction of this article on 25 February 2016 in the Sydney Morning Herald.[4] Richard Cook of The Monthly asserted that Sheehan should have realised the informant was unreliable with a minimum amount of research, and criticised Fairfax Media for minimising the error in their retraction.[5] On 4 March Sheehan was "... stood aside from his duties until further notice."[6] On 18 May, The Guardian reported that he had been given a redundancy package by Fairfax but had refused to say whether his departure was forced or voluntary.[7]

References

  1. Switzer, Tom (10-12-2007) "Don't silence conservative dissent". The Australian. Retrieved 2010-04-01.
  2. "Paul Sheehan". randomhouse.co.nz. Random House. Retrieved 11 September 2013.
  3. Sheehan, Paul. Among the Barbarians: The Dividing of Australia, Random House, 1998, ISBN 0-09-183999-8
  4. 1 2 Sheehan, Paul (24 February 2016). "The story of Louise: we'll never know the scale of the rape epidemic in Sydney". Sydney Morning Herald.
  5. Cooke, Richard (25 February 2016). "A tissue of lies: Paul Sheehan and "Louise"". The Monthly.
  6. "Paul Sheehan suspended from Sydney Morning Herald following false rape story". ABC News. 4 March 2016. Retrieved 4 March 2016.
  7. http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/18/paul-sheehan-given-redundancy-package-by-fairfax-but-wont-say-if-he-was-pushed?CMP=share_btn_tw

External links

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