Andrew Bolt
Encyclopedia
Andrew Bolt is an Australia
n newspaper columnist, radio commentator, blogger and television host. Bolt is a columnist and associate editor of the Melbourne
-based Herald Sun
. He has appeared on the Nine Network
, Melbourne Talk Radio
, ABC Television
, Network Ten
and local radio. In 2005, Bolt released a compilation of newspaper columns in a book titled The Best of Andrew Bolt—Still Not Sorry. From 2011, he has hosted The Bolt Report
on Network Ten
.
, while his father worked as a schoolteacher and principal. After graduating from secondary school, Bolt travelled and worked overseas before returning to Australia and starting university studies. After a year he left university to take up a cadetship at The Age
, a Melbourne broadsheet newspaper. He worked for The Age in various roles, including as a sports writer, prior to joining The Herald
, which in 1990 merged with The Sun News-Pictorial
to form the Herald Sun. He had various roles including as Asia correspondent.
Bolt also worked for the Hawke Government on two election campaigns.
in Melbourne. Until 2011, he appeared every Monday on the Nine Network's breakfast television program Today
to discuss the news of the day. He appears weekly on 2GB
in Sydney
for "The Clash" with Union leader Paul Howes
.
He is a fill-in panelist on The 7PM Project
on Network Ten
and from May 2011 hosts his own TV show, The Bolt Report
, also on Network Ten. He has appeared on Q&A, Late Night Live with Phillip Adams
and more.
Bolt writes at least three times a week for the Herald Sun and his column is published in The Daily Telegraph
, Adelaide Advertiser, Northern Territory News
and The Courier-Mail
.
.
in which he quoted from a classified
intelligence document written by Wilkie as an intelligence analyst for the Office of National Assessments. It was claimed, but never proven, that someone in Foreign Minister Alexander Downer
's office had leaked the document to Bolt. A spokesperson for the Australian Federal Police
said that they did not have any evidence to identify the culprit.
, Professor of Politics
at La Trobe University
, about the Stolen Generation
. Bolt claims that there were no large-scale removals of children "for purely racist reasons". After Bolt challenged Manne to "name just 10" children stolen for racial reasons, Manne gave him a four-page list of names which, Bolt states, includes children rescued from sexual abuse and removed for other humanitarian reasons. Manne argued that Bolt's failure to address the wealth of documentary and anecdotal evidence demonstrating the existence of the Stolen Generation amounts to a clear case of historical denialism
. Bolt noted multiple instances of contemporary Aboriginal children being left "in grave danger that we would not tolerate for children of any other race because we are so terrified of the 'stolen generations' myth."
after suing Bolt and the publishers of the Herald Sun over a 13 December 2000 column in which he claimed she had "hugged two drug traffickers she let walk free". Popovic asserted she had in fact shaken their hands to congratulate them on having completed a rehabilitation program. The jury found that the article was not true, that it was not a faithful and accurate record of judicial proceedings and that it was not fair comment on a matter of public interest. It found that the column had, however, been reasonable and not malicious.
Bolt emerged from the Supreme Court
after the jury verdict, stating his column had been accurate and that the mixed verdict was a victory for free speech. His statement outside the court was harshly criticised by Supreme Court judge Bernard Bongiorno, who later overturned the jury's decision, ruling that Bolt had not acted reasonably because he did not seek a response from Ms Popovic before writing the article and, in evidence given during the trial, showed he did not care whether or not the article was defamatory. Justice Bongiorno included $25,000 punitive damages
in his award against Bolt and the newspaper for both the "misleading" and "disingenuous" comments he had made outside court and the newspaper's reporting of the jury's decision. The Court of Appeal later reversed the $25,000 punitive damages, though it upheld the defamation finding, describing Bolt's conduct as "at worst, dishonest and misleading and at best, grossly careless".
over two separate posts on Bolt's blog. The nine are suing over posts titled "It's so hip to be black"/"White is the New Black" and "White Fellas in the Black". The articles suggested it was fashionable for "fair-skinned people" of diverse ancestry to choose Aboriginal racial identity for the purposes of political and career clout. The applicants claimed the posts breached the Racial Discrimination Act. They sought an apology, legal costs, and a gag on republishing the articles and blogs, and "other relief as the court deems fit". They did not seek damages.
On 28 September 2011 Bolt was found to have contravened section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. The judge and "fair-skinned Aborigine" complainants rejected Bolt's appeal to free speech.
Bolt's forum changed to a more conventional blog
format in July 2006. The blog covers a wide variety of topics, including climate change
, Australian politics, the ABC
and issues concerned with multiculturalism
and Islam
. Comments are open but are moderated to remove defamation, obscenities and so on. Bolt states that abusive commenters will be banned, but opposing voices will not.
In late 2009, Bolt temporarily restricted comments to one "readers' tips" post per day.
Bolt's blog registered one million hits
for the month of July 2008
and "more than 2 million page impressions from more than 300,000 unique browsers" for November 2009.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n newspaper columnist, radio commentator, blogger and television host. Bolt is a columnist and associate editor of the Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
-based Herald Sun
Herald Sun
The Herald Sun is a morning tabloid newspaper based in Melbourne, Australia. It is published by The Herald and Weekly Times, a subsidiary of News Limited, itself a subsidiary of News Corporation. It is available for purchase throughout Melbourne, Regional Victoria, Tasmania, the Australian Capital...
. He has appeared on the Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
, Melbourne Talk Radio
Melbourne Talk Radio
Melbourne Talk Radio is a radio station operating in Melbourne which commenced on 19 April 2010. It replaced 3MP, which used the 1377 kHz frequency. 3MP moved to digital only under the name of 3MP MyMP...
, ABC Television
ABC Television
ABC Television is a service of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation launched in 1956. As a public broadcasting broadcaster, the ABC provides four non-commercial channels within Australia, and a partially advertising-funded satellite channel overseas....
, Network Ten
Network Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...
and local radio. In 2005, Bolt released a compilation of newspaper columns in a book titled The Best of Andrew Bolt—Still Not Sorry. From 2011, he has hosted The Bolt Report
The Bolt Report
The Bolt Report is an Australian Sunday morning political discussion show. Broadcast by Network Ten on Sunday mornings at 10 am and repeated at 4:30 pm, it is hosted by conservative commentator and Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt. The programme emphasises a right wing agenda and is consistently...
on Network Ten
Network Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...
.
Background
Born to newly-arrived Dutch migrants, Bolt spent his childhood in remote rural areas such as TarcoolaTarcoola, South Australia
Tarcoola is a town in the Far North of South Australia 416 km north-northwest of Port Augusta.Tarcoola is taken from a non-local aboriginal language from an area around Tarcoola Station in NSW; it means river bend.-History:Tarcoola Post Office opened on 18 August 1900 and the town was...
, while his father worked as a schoolteacher and principal. After graduating from secondary school, Bolt travelled and worked overseas before returning to Australia and starting university studies. After a year he left university to take up a cadetship at The Age
The Age
The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...
, a Melbourne broadsheet newspaper. He worked for The Age in various roles, including as a sports writer, prior to joining The Herald
The Herald (Melbourne)
The Herald was a broadsheet newspaper published in Melbourne, Australia from 1840 to 1990.The Port Phillip Herald was first published as a semi-weekly newspaper on 3 January 1840 from a weatherboard shack in Collins Street. It was the fourth newspaper to start in Melbourne.The paper took its name...
, which in 1990 merged with The Sun News-Pictorial
The Sun News-Pictorial
The Sun News-Pictorial, commonly known as The Sun, was a morning daily tabloid newspaper in Melbourne, Australia established in 1922 and closed in 1990.It was part of The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd stable of Melbourne newspapers...
to form the Herald Sun. He had various roles including as Asia correspondent.
Bolt also worked for the Hawke Government on two election campaigns.
Media appearances
Bolt has had various roles on numerous TV networks, radio stations and in the print media. From 2001-2011 he was a regular guest on Insiders. He hosts a daily radio show Breakfast with Steve Price and Andrew Bolt on MTR 1377. He was previously a regular guest on 3AW3AW
3AW is a talkback radio station in Melbourne, Australia on 693 kHz AM. It began transmission on 22 February 1932 as Melbourne's fifth commercial radio station.-History:...
in Melbourne. Until 2011, he appeared every Monday on the Nine Network's breakfast television program Today
Today (Australian TV program)
Today and Weekend Today are Australian breakfast television programmes, the show is often referred to as The Today Show. The show has been broadcast live by the Nine Network each morning since 1982...
to discuss the news of the day. He appears weekly on 2GB
2GB
2GB is a commercial radio station in Sydney, Australia broadcasting on 873 kHz, AM. It is one of Australia's most popular talk-back radio stations, and is the number one station in Sydney.-History:The station commenced broadcasting in August 1926...
in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
for "The Clash" with Union leader Paul Howes
Paul Howes
Paul Howes is the National Secretary of The Australian Workers' Union, a position he has held since the age of 26. He is also Vice President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and serves on a number of Government boards....
.
He is a fill-in panelist on The 7PM Project
The 7PM Project
The Project is an Australian talk show television program airing weeknights across Australia on Network Ten. The formerly half hour long show premiered on 20 July 2009, and is hosted by Charlie Pickering, Carrie Bickmore and Dave Hughes, with a rotating daily guest panelist...
on Network Ten
Network Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...
and from May 2011 hosts his own TV show, The Bolt Report
The Bolt Report
The Bolt Report is an Australian Sunday morning political discussion show. Broadcast by Network Ten on Sunday mornings at 10 am and repeated at 4:30 pm, it is hosted by conservative commentator and Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt. The programme emphasises a right wing agenda and is consistently...
, also on Network Ten. He has appeared on Q&A, Late Night Live with Phillip Adams
Phillip Adams
Phillip Andrew Hedley Adams, AO is an Australian broadcaster, film producer, writer, social commentator, satirist and left-wing pundit. He currently hosts a radio program, Late Night Live, four nights a week on the ABC, and he also writes a weekly column for the News Limited-owned newspaper, The...
and more.
Bolt writes at least three times a week for the Herald Sun and his column is published in The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph (Australia)
The Daily Telegraph is an Australian tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, by Nationwide News, part of News Corporation.The Tele, as it is also known, was founded in 1879. From 1936 to 1972, it was owned by Frank Packer's Australian Consolidated Press. That year it was sold to...
, Adelaide Advertiser, Northern Territory News
Northern Territory News
The Northern Territory News is a morning tabloid newspaper based in Darwin, Australia. It is a subsidiary of News Limited, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. It primarily serves Darwin and the rest of the Northern Territory...
and The Courier-Mail
The Courier-Mail
The Courier-Mail is a daily newspaper published in Brisbane, Australia. Owned by News Limited, it is published daily from Monday to Saturday in tabloid format. Its editorial offices are located at Bowen Hills, in Brisbane's inner northern suburbs, and it is printed at Murarrie, in Brisbane's...
.
Controversy and criticism
Bolt is often a target of the ABCs Media Watch for his controversial and perceived view points in many of his articles and commentary on the network 10 TV show The Bolt ReportThe Bolt Report
The Bolt Report is an Australian Sunday morning political discussion show. Broadcast by Network Ten on Sunday mornings at 10 am and repeated at 4:30 pm, it is hosted by conservative commentator and Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt. The programme emphasises a right wing agenda and is consistently...
.
Leak of intelligence document
In June 2003, Bolt published an article criticising Andrew WilkieAndrew Wilkie
Andrew Damien Wilkie is an Australian politician and independent federal member for Denison...
in which he quoted from a classified
Classified information
Classified information is sensitive information to which access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of persons. A formal security clearance is required to handle classified documents or access classified data. The clearance process requires a satisfactory background investigation...
intelligence document written by Wilkie as an intelligence analyst for the Office of National Assessments. It was claimed, but never proven, that someone in Foreign Minister Alexander Downer
Alexander Downer
Alexander John Gosse Downer is a former Australian Liberal Party politician who was Foreign Minister of Australia from March 1996 to December 2007, the longest-serving in Australian history...
's office had leaked the document to Bolt. A spokesperson for the Australian Federal Police
Australian Federal Police
The Australian Federal Police is the federal police agency of the Commonwealth of Australia. Although the AFP was created by the amalgamation in 1979 of three Commonwealth law enforcement agencies, it traces its history from Commonwealth law enforcement agencies dating back to the federation of...
said that they did not have any evidence to identify the culprit.
Stolen Generations
Bolt has frequently clashed with Robert ManneRobert Manne
Robert Manne is a professor of politics at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.Born in Melbourne, Manne's earliest political consciousness was formed by the fact that his parents were Jewish refugees from Europe and his grandparents were victims of the Holocaust...
, Professor of Politics
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
at La Trobe University
La Trobe University
La Trobe University is a multi-campus university in Victoria, Australia. It was established in 1964 by an Act of Parliament to become the third oldest university in the state of Victoria. The main campus of La Trobe is located in the Melbourne suburb of Bundoora; two other major campuses are...
, about the Stolen Generation
Stolen Generation
The Stolen Generations were the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian Federal and State government agencies and church missions, under acts of their respective parliaments...
. Bolt claims that there were no large-scale removals of children "for purely racist reasons". After Bolt challenged Manne to "name just 10" children stolen for racial reasons, Manne gave him a four-page list of names which, Bolt states, includes children rescued from sexual abuse and removed for other humanitarian reasons. Manne argued that Bolt's failure to address the wealth of documentary and anecdotal evidence demonstrating the existence of the Stolen Generation amounts to a clear case of historical denialism
Denialism
Denialism is choosing to deny reality as a way to avoid an uncomfortable truth: "[it] is the refusal to accept an empirically verifiable reality...
. Bolt noted multiple instances of contemporary Aboriginal children being left "in grave danger that we would not tolerate for children of any other race because we are so terrified of the 'stolen generations' myth."
Defamation case
In 2002, Magistrate Jelena Popovic was awarded $246,000 damages for defamationSlander and libel
Defamation—also called calumny, vilification, traducement, slander , and libel —is the communication of a statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, business, product, group, government, or nation a negative image...
after suing Bolt and the publishers of the Herald Sun over a 13 December 2000 column in which he claimed she had "hugged two drug traffickers she let walk free". Popovic asserted she had in fact shaken their hands to congratulate them on having completed a rehabilitation program. The jury found that the article was not true, that it was not a faithful and accurate record of judicial proceedings and that it was not fair comment on a matter of public interest. It found that the column had, however, been reasonable and not malicious.
Bolt emerged from the Supreme Court
Supreme Court of Victoria
The Supreme Court of Victoria is the superior court for the State of Victoria, Australia. It was founded in 1852, and is a superior court of common law and equity, with unlimited jurisdiction within the state...
after the jury verdict, stating his column had been accurate and that the mixed verdict was a victory for free speech. His statement outside the court was harshly criticised by Supreme Court judge Bernard Bongiorno, who later overturned the jury's decision, ruling that Bolt had not acted reasonably because he did not seek a response from Ms Popovic before writing the article and, in evidence given during the trial, showed he did not care whether or not the article was defamatory. Justice Bongiorno included $25,000 punitive damages
Punitive damages
Punitive damages or exemplary damages are damages intended to reform or deter the defendant and others from engaging in conduct similar to that which formed the basis of the lawsuit...
in his award against Bolt and the newspaper for both the "misleading" and "disingenuous" comments he had made outside court and the newspaper's reporting of the jury's decision. The Court of Appeal later reversed the $25,000 punitive damages, though it upheld the defamation finding, describing Bolt's conduct as "at worst, dishonest and misleading and at best, grossly careless".
Litigation
In September 2010, nine individuals commenced legal proceedings in the Federal Court against Bolt and the Herald SunHerald Sun
The Herald Sun is a morning tabloid newspaper based in Melbourne, Australia. It is published by The Herald and Weekly Times, a subsidiary of News Limited, itself a subsidiary of News Corporation. It is available for purchase throughout Melbourne, Regional Victoria, Tasmania, the Australian Capital...
over two separate posts on Bolt's blog. The nine are suing over posts titled "It's so hip to be black"/"White is the New Black" and "White Fellas in the Black". The articles suggested it was fashionable for "fair-skinned people" of diverse ancestry to choose Aboriginal racial identity for the purposes of political and career clout. The applicants claimed the posts breached the Racial Discrimination Act. They sought an apology, legal costs, and a gag on republishing the articles and blogs, and "other relief as the court deems fit". They did not seek damages.
On 28 September 2011 Bolt was found to have contravened section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. The judge and "fair-skinned Aborigine" complainants rejected Bolt's appeal to free speech.
Blog
In May 2005, Bolt established a web-only forum in which readers could offer comments, feedback and questions in response to his columns. He posted some of these comments, together with brief responses, in the late afternoon of every business day, on the Herald Sun website.Bolt's forum changed to a more conventional blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
format in July 2006. The blog covers a wide variety of topics, including climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
, Australian politics, the ABC
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
and issues concerned with multiculturalism
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...
and Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
. Comments are open but are moderated to remove defamation, obscenities and so on. Bolt states that abusive commenters will be banned, but opposing voices will not.
In late 2009, Bolt temporarily restricted comments to one "readers' tips" post per day.
Bolt's blog registered one million hits
Hit (internet)
A hit is a request to a web server for a file . When a web page is uploaded from a server the number of "hits" or "page hits" is equal to the number of files requested. Therefore, one page load does not always equal one hit because often pages are made up of other images and other files which stack...
for the month of July 2008
and "more than 2 million page impressions from more than 300,000 unique browsers" for November 2009.
Personal life
Bolt is married to Sally Morrell, a fellow columnist at the Herald Sun. They have three children. Bolt is agnostic.External links
- Andrew Bolt's Herald Sun site
- Andrew Bolt's Blog
- Decisions of the Victorian Court of Appeal in the Bolt/Popovic Case
- http://www.ipa.org.au/library/review56-2.pdfJune 2004 Interview with Bolt by the Institute of Public AffairsInstitute of Public AffairsThe Institute of Public Affairs is a public policy think tank based in Melbourne, Australia. It advocates free market economic policies such as privatisation and deregulation of state-owned enterprises, trade liberalisation and deregulated workplaces, climate change skepticism , and the...
] - Andrew Bolt on Trial