Newspapers spent 30 years picking winners. That streak's over.

📉 What’s new

The Australia Institute looked at the last two federal elections and found most major newspapers backed the losing side.

That’s a sharp contrast with the previous three decades, where papers typically endorsed the winner — suggesting a significant shift in influence.

📱 Why it matters

Legacy media outlets like the Australian, the Daily Telegraph, and the Herald Sun once helped shape national sentiment in the lead-up to elections. Now, political parties can win without courting a newspaper’s blessing — and that could create space for more bold, independent policy thinking. The report argued Parties no longer need legacy media’s permission to win. 

📊 By the numbers

The report included a table tracking 30 years of newspaper endorsements — showing a consistent trend of papers picking winners until 2022 and 2025.

For example, in 2019, most mastheads backed the Coalition — which won. But in 2022, those same papers stuck with the Coalition… and Labor swept to power.

📰 Enter: Newspapers

The report clearly struck a nerve. The Australian ran an editorial earlier this week defending the value of endorsements — but ended up making the opposite case.

The editorial began with the argument that when newspapers were the main source of news… readers played closer attention to the editorial endorsements

But then concluded with “The blood, sweat and anguish that goes into the big election editorial has never counted for much with voters.”

So… which is it? If endorsements never mattered, why run them? And if they did matter — doesn’t their fading influence say something about the state of the mainstream media?

📺 What about TV debates?

The report also looked at leaders’ debates, which once drew huge audiences. While viewership is now modest, clips from those debates often go viral on TikTok and Instagram — reshaping political moments for a new generation.

🧭 The bottom line

Printed newspapers are no longer the political kingmakers they once were. Their influence hasn’t disappeared — it’s just migrated.

Instead of front pages like “Australia Needs Tony,” today’s voters are scrolling, swiping, and sharing their way to the ballot box.

Newspapers might still matter — but not in the way they think.