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Christopher "Chris" Wayne Masters PSM (born 4 December 1948 in Grafton, New South Wales [1] ) is a multiple Walkley Award–winning and Logie Award–winning Australian journalist and author.
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Christopher "Chris" Wayne Masters PSM (born 4 December 1948 in Grafton, New South Wales [1] ) is a multiple Walkley Award–winning and Logie Award–winning Australian journalist and author.
Chris Masters was born in Grafton, New South Wales. He is the fourth son of Charles Masters and the journalist and author Olga Masters and the brother of rugby league coach and journalist Roy Masters, filmmaker Quentin Masters, radio broadcaster Ian Masters and media producers Sue Masters and Deb Masters.
Masters was educated at Macquarie Boys High School, Parramatta, completing his Leaving Certificate in 1965. He joined the Australian Broadcasting Corporation the following year.
He commenced working on ABC television's flagship public affairs program Four Corners in 1983 and has since become the program's longest serving reporter. His first program was the landmark "Big League", a 1983 investigation of judicial corruption, which helped bring about the Street Royal Commission. [2]
He is a Gold Walkley Award winner, for his 1985 Four Corners report "French Connections" about the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior. Another Four Corners report by Masters, "The Moonlight State" from 1987, led to the Fitzgerald Inquiry into corruption in Queensland. [2]
In 2004, he was appointed adjunct professor in Journalism with the School of Applied Communication at RMIT University and in 2006, RMIT awarded Masters an honorary doctorate in Communications. [3]
Masters was awarded the Public Service Medal on 14 June 1999 [4] and the Centenary Medal on 1 January 2001 for "service to Australian society in journalism". [5]
He is on the national board of directors of the children's cancer charity RedKite. [6]
Jonestown won the 2007 Queensland Premier's Literary Awards Literary Work Advancing Public Debate – the Harry Williams Award. It also won the 2007 Walkley Book Award for the best non-fiction book. [7]
No Front Line: Australia's Special Forces At War in Afghanistan was shortlisted for the 2018 Walkley Book Award. [8]
Flawed Hero: Truth, Lies and War Crimes was shortlisted for the 2024 Australian Political Book of the Year Award. [9]
Masters has written four books. His first Inside Story, published in 1992, told of the stories behind some of his Four Corners programs. His second, Not for Publication, published in 2002, again dealt with his television work. His third book was called Jonestown and finally a book about the Australian soldier called Uncommon Soldier. Masters' work also played a key role in bringing down Ben Roberts-Smith.
In 2002, Masters profiled radio personality Alan Jones for an episode of Four Corners, and then went on to write a biography titled Jonestown: The Power and the Myth of Alan Jones . On 29 June 2006, ABC Enterprises decided to cancel publication of Masters' manuscript; ABC Enterprises director Robyn Watts stated that publication was being withdrawn because it would "almost certainly result in commercial loss, which would be irresponsible". This was widely believed to be a veiled reference to the fact that Jones's lawyers had threatened an expensive defamation lawsuit if the book reached publication. [10] ABC program Media Watch reported that the decision to cancel publication had been made not by ABC Enterprises but by the ABC Board. Many ABC personalities have criticised the Board's decision, and indeed wrote a petition against it, with signatories including Richard Glover and Phillip Adams.
Mike Carlton, a Sydney radio broadcaster and rival to Jones, suggested on 2UE during his show of 5 July 2006 that the book might detail homosexual encounters on Jones's part, [11] and Jones's lawyers had told the ABC that Masters' materials were "replete with false and inappropriate sexual innuendo". [12] Indeed, in Jonestown, Masters advances the theory that Jones's attempt to deny his sexuality is a defining feature of his personality, and that it provides an explanation for many aspects of his behaviour, including, for example, his interest in mentoring young male athletes. His explanation of much about Jones by reference to his sexuality left Masters open to charges of homophobia, [13] which friendly commentators (in an ironic effort to defend Jones's reputation) have exploited.[ example needed ]
The ABC's refusal to publish the book did not delay it for long; Masters had little difficulty in finding publishers willing to take it on, and Allen & Unwin released it in October 2006. Lengthy excerpts were also published in The Sydney Morning Herald . [14]
With investigative help from Nick McKenzie and sustained support by Nine Network, Masters spent more than seven years investigating and reporting on Victoria Cross winner Ben Roberts-Smith. Roberts-Smith filed defamation suits against The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Canberra Times after they reported he had murdered Afghans during multiple deployments to the country from 2006 to 2012. [15] [16] Roberts-Smith lost the case, with evidence clearly corroborating the work done by Masters and McKenzie. [17]
In 2023, Masters published his full account of Robert-Smith's story in his book Flawed Hero. [18] It was shortlisted for the 2024 Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction. [19]
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The Australian, with its Saturday edition The Weekend Australian, is a daily newspaper in broadsheet format published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964. As the only Australian daily newspaper distributed nationally, its readership as of September 2019 of both print and online editions was 2,394,000. Its editorial line has been self-described over time as centre-right.
The Gold Walkley is the major award of the Walkley Awards for Australian journalism. It is chosen by the Walkley Advisory Board from the winners of all the other categories. It has been awarded annually since 1978.
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Jonestown: The Power and The Myth of Alan Jones is a 2006 biography of radio personality Alan Jones by Chris Masters. The biography deals in part with Jones's sexuality; Masters asserts that Jones is homosexual, something that Jones does not self-identify as. Masters began Jonestown in 2002 after profiling Jones for an episode of the current affairs program Four Corners.
Leslie Allen Carlyon was an Australian writer and newspaper editor.
Anthony John Roberts is an Australian politician. Roberts is a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly representing Lane Cove for the Liberal Party since 2003. He is the longest-serving Member of the Legislative Assembly and so holds the honorary title of "Father of the House."
Leigh Peta Sales is an Australian journalist and author, best known for her work with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). She has won three Walkley Awards, and in 2023 won the Gold Logie Award for Most Popular Personality on Australian Television.
Jacquelin Magnay is an Australian journalist who wrote for the Sydney Morning Herald from 1992 to 2009. In November 2009 she was appointed as Olympics editor for the Telegraph Media Group in the United Kingdom. As at 2022, Magnay was European correspondent for The Australian.
Helen O'Neill is a Walkley Award-nominated Australian freelance journalist and author. Born and educated in the United Kingdom, O'Neill worked as a newspaper and TV journalist in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom and is now an Australian resident. O'Neill was awarded an Australian Literary Council Grant in 2009 which included a six-month residency at the Keesing Studio in Paris.
Margaret Simons is an Australian academic, freelance journalist and author. She has written numerous articles and essays as well as many books, including a biography of Senate leader of the Australian Labor Party, Penny Wong and Australian minister for the environment Tanya Plibersek. Her essay Fallen Angels won the Walkley Award for Social Equity Journalism.
Benjamin Roberts-Smith is an Australian former soldier who, in a civil defamation trial in 2023 he initiated in the Federal Court of Australia, was found to have committed war crimes in Afghanistan during 2009, 2010 and 2012. An appeal to a Full Court of the Federal Court, comprising three judges, commenced on 5 February 2024.
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Nick McKenzie is an Australian investigative journalist. He has won 14 Walkley Awards, been twice named the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year and also received the Kennedy Award for Journalist of the Year in 2020 and 2022. He is the president of the Melbourne Press Club.
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The Walkley Book Award is an Australian award presented annually by the Walkley Foundation for excellence in long-form journalism and nonfiction, with subjects ranging from biography to true crime to investigative journalism and reporting.
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