The Fifth Estate is the Wheeler Centre’s new series of fortnightly forums: a more measured approach to news and current affairs. Provocative and studied, authoritative and unhurried, this is real analysis that will be pulling no punches. Hosted by broadcaster, journalist and anthropologist Sally Warhaft, The Fifth Estate is indispensible live journalism. All events are recorded, with podcast episodes posted on our website by noon the following day.
What is the future for media in Australia? How can newspapers adapt and survive in the digital age? And what is the role of the national broadcaster in a rapidly changing media landscape? As Gina Rinehart makes her bid for Fairfax and News Limited restructures its mastheads, questions abound about ownership and control, editorial independence and the very survival of media as we know it. Join Sally Warhaft with The Australian’s Editor-at-Large Paul Kelly, veteran media buyer Harold Mitchell, and The Conversation’s Founder and Editor Andrew Jaspan, to discuss these extraordinary times.
Featuring
Harold Mitchell
Harold Mitchell AC, is the founder of Mitchell & Partners and Executive Chairman of Aegis Media Pacific. Since he started Mitchell & Partners in 1976, the company has evolved to become the largest media and communications group in Australia today, with a growing presence in New Zealand and across the Asia-Pacific region.
In December 2000, he launched the Harold Mitchell Foundation which distributes funds between health and the arts. He has been Chairman of the National Gallery Australia, President of the Melbourne International Festival of Arts, Director of Deakin Foundation, President of the Museums Board of Victorian and a Board Member of the Opera Australia Council.
Mr Mitchell holds a large number of community roles including Chairman CARE Australia; Chairman of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra; Chairman of ThoroughVision; Chairman and Owner of the Melbourne Rebels Rugby Union team; Chairman of TVS, University of Western Sydney’s television service for Greater Sydney; Chairman of Art Exhibitions Australia Vice President of Tennis Australia; and Non-Executive Director, Crown Limited.

Andrew Jaspan
Andrew Jaspan is the Founder and Editor of The Conversation.
Previously, he edited The London Observer, The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday and Sunday Herald in the UK. He was invited in 2004 to be Editor-in-Chief of The Age and The Sunday Age in Melbourne, Australia.
He is Asia-Pacific Director of Innovation Media International, on the Board of the RMIT Global Cities Institute, a speaker and participant in the Australian Davos conference, a participant in the 2020 Ideas Summit, and regular contributor on ABC radio. He is Adjunct Professor in School of Media and Communication, RMIT, Melbourne; Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Engineering and Infrastructure, University of Melbourne.

Sally Warhaft
Sally Warhaft is a Melbourne broadcaster, anthropologist and writer. She is the host of The Fifth Estate, the Wheeler Centre’s live series focusing on journalism, politics, media, and international relations, and The Leap Year ...

Paul Kelly
Paul Kelly is editor-at-large at The Australian and a former editor-in-chief of the News Limited national broadsheet from 1991 to 1996.
Paul writes on Australian politics and history and international affairs and is a regular commentator on the Sky News program, Australian Agenda. He is the author of nine books including The Hawke Ascendancy (1984), The End of Certainty (1992) and November 1975, published on the 20th anniversary of the Whitlam dismissal. His recent books include Triumph and Demise on the Rudd-Gillard era and The March of Patriots which offers a re-interpretation of Paul Keating and John Howard in office. Paul has been a Fellow at the Kennedy School at Harvard and a Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at Melbourne University.