What’s behind reports of the surprising decision to shift The Australian’s respected
media writer Jane Schulze from her round at a very sensitive time for
Australia’s moguls? The news broke on Friday at the end of the biggest
week of the year for media reporters: the release of results for Seven
Network, PBL, Southern Cross Broadcasting, Prime TV and Rural Press.

Why News Ltd and the management of The Australian
made this decision is unknown. Perhaps Schulze was too independent of
mind, but she’s now taken a week off and won’t be back at work until
September 5.

Certainly at the Seven Network press conference on
Tuesday, director Bruce McWilliam wouldn’t answer her questions about
the C7 legal action that starts in the NSW Supreme Court on September
16. He told her no comment, partly on the basis that she was working
for “one of the defendants.”

Likewise at the PBL presser on
Thursday afternoon in Sydney Schulze didn’t resile from asking questions
about problems at Nine and in gaming. She was doing what any good
journo should do.

The line coming from some people in TV
is that she was “too responsive” to the spin coming from Seven
Network’s spinner, Simon Francis. That’s like saying that she was too
responsive to the comments from any other PR or spokesman for a
company. Jane is certainly very friendly and approachable and one
criticism has been that she should write more about what she knows.

That
said, she’s incredibly hard working and most of the players talk to
her, although keeping that vast array of contacts happy sometimes means
a tough story will occasionally not make it into the paper.

That
said, she was also more independent in her coverage of News Ltd than
many of her predecessors and this comes at a time of unprecedented
criticism of Rupert Murdoch’s corporate governance standards.

The best bet is that the recently returned New York Post writer, John Lehmann, who has become an aggressive company man working under Col Allan, will be her replacement. He wrote the big feature in The Weekend Australian on the move by David Kirk to the CEO’s role at John Fairfax.