Crikey is an independent Australia

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 electronic magazine comprising an open access website and an email newsletter available to subscribers. Well known in Australian political, media and business circles, Crikey was described by former Federal Opposition Leader Mark Latham

Mark Latham

Mark William Latham , an author and former Australian politician, was leader of the Federal Parliamentary Australian Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition from December 2003 to January 2005....

 as the "most popular website in Parliament House" in The Latham Diaries

The Latham Diaries

The Latham Diaries is a political memoir by the former Federal Parliamentary Australian Labor Party leader, Mark Latham. The book, published in 2005 by Melbourne University Press, attracted a great amount of criticism...

. It has reported on unpopular opinions and broken stories not found in more mainstream media outlets.

History

Crikey was founded by activist shareholder

Activist shareholder

An activist shareholder uses an equity stake in a corporation to put public pressure on its management. The goals of activist shareholders range from financial to non-financial...

 Stephen Mayne

Stephen Mayne

Stephen Mayne is an Australian journalist, local government councillor and self-described shareholder activist. Mayne is also considered “serial runner”, continually running for elected office and election onto company boards, more often than not in futile attempts, or just to make political...

, a journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

 and former staffer of then Liberal

Liberal Party of Australia

The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...

 Victorian premier Jeff Kennett

Jeff Kennett

Jeffrey Gibb Kennett AC , a former Australian politician, was the Premier of Victoria between 1992 and 1999. He is currently the President of Hawthorn Football Club. He is the founding Chairman of beyondblue, a national depression initiative.- Early life :Kennett was born in Melbourne on 2 March...

. It developed out of Mayne's "jeffed.com" website, which in turn developed out of his abortive independent candidate campaign for Kennett's seat of Burwood

Electoral district of Burwood

The electoral district of Burwood is an electorate for the Victorian Legislative Assembly in Australia. It is located approximately 13 kilometres east of Melbourne, and covers an area of 24 km². It includes the suburbs of Ashburton, Ashwood, Box Hill South, and parts of Burwood, Camberwell,...

. Longstanding Crikey political commentators/reporters include former Liberal insider Christian Kerr

Christian Kerr

Christian Kerr, an Australian political commentator who wrote for the email news service Crikey before joining The Australian in 2008.Prior to becoming a writer Kerr was a staffer to South Australian Liberal Senators Robert Hill, Amanda Vanstone and former South Australian Premier John Olsen.In...

 (who originally wrote under the pseudonym 'Hillary Bray'), Guy Rundle, Charles Richardson, Bernard Keane

Bernard Keane

Bernard Keane is Crikey’s Canberra correspondent, writing on politics, media and business.Previously, he was a public servant, beginning with stints in transport policy and as a speechwriter before he moved into communications policy, where he obtained extensive experience in Australian media...

, Mungo MacCallum

Mungo Wentworth MacCallum

Mungo Wentworth MacCallum is an Australian political journalist and commentator.He is the son of Mungo Ballardie MacCallum , and Diana Wentworth a great granddaughter of the Australian explorer and politician William Charles Wentworth...

 and Hugo Kelly.

In 2003 Stephen Mayne, the then proprietor, was forced to sell his house in order to settle defamation cases brought by radio presenter Steve Price

Steve Price (broadcaster)

Steve Price is a radio broadcaster currently working as program director and breakfast presenter on Melbourne talkback radio station MTR 1377...

 and former ALP

Australian Labor Party

The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...

 senator

Australian Senate

The Senate is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives. Senators are popularly elected under a system of proportional representation. Senators are elected for a term that is usually six years; after a double dissolution, however,...

 Nick Bolkus

Nick Bolkus

Nick Bolkus is a former Australian Labor Party politician. He was a member of the Senate from July 1981 to 2005, representing the state of South Australia.-Early career:...

 over comments posted about them by Crikey.

Staff of then Treasurer

Treasurer of Australia

The Treasurer of Australia is the minister in the Government of Australia responsible for government expenditure and revenue raising. He is the head of the Department of the Treasury. The Treasurer plays a key role in the economic policy of the government...

 Peter Costello

Peter Costello

Peter Howard Costello AC is an Australian politician and lawyer who served as the Treasurer in the Australian government from 1996 to 2007. He is the longest-serving Treasurer in Australian history. Costello was a Member of the Australian House of Representatives from 1990 to 2009, representing...

 banned Crikey from the 2005, 2006 and 2007 Budget

Budget

A budget is a financial plan and a list of all planned expenses and revenues. It is a plan for saving, borrowing and spending. A budget is an important concept in microeconomics, which uses a budget line to illustrate the trade-offs between two or more goods...

 'lock ups', in which financial journalists are shown the Federal Budget papers some hours in advance so that their publications can report the Budget in depth as soon as it is released, on the grounds that Crikey is not considered to be part of the "mainstream media

Mainstream media

Mainstream media are those media disseminated via the largest distribution channels, which therefore represent what the majority of media consumers are likely to encounter...

".

Sale to Private Media

On February 1, 2005, it was announced that Stephen Mayne had sold Crikey to Private Media Partners, another independent media operator in Australia, owned by former Editor-in-chief of the Sydney Morning Herald, Eric Beecher, for A$

Australian dollar

The Australian dollar is the currency of the Commonwealth of Australia, including Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, and Norfolk Island, as well as the independent Pacific Island states of Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu...

1 million. Under the agreement, Mayne continues to write for Crikey as a business commentator.

Under PMP's stewardship the publication aimed for "professional" style, avoiding the use of in-house nicknames and other idiosyncrasies of the original Crikey. In February 2006 the Age reported that former writer, Hugo Kelly, had been sacked on the grounds of professional misconduct.