Naming the new host of Media Watch was one of the first items at the ABC TV 2025 Upfront underway today.
Taking over the role from the outgoing host Paul Barry is award-winning investigative journalist Linton Besser.
Besser is a former foreign correspondent who has reported from around the world for Four Corners, Foreign Correspondent and 7.30. His work has also appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Bulletin.
Besser has won four Walkley Awards, two Kennedy Awards and a George Munster Award. His work has prompted public inquiries, including a Royal Commission, corruption findings and criminal prosecutions against business figures, politicians and other public officials.
Media Watch Hall of Fame
Besser follows in the footsteps of Paul Barry, Jonathon Holmes, Richard Ackland, David Marr, Liz Jackson, Monica Attard and Stuart Littlemore, who have all hosted Media Watch since the show began in 1989.
His first show as host is on Monday 3 February 2025.
Linton Besser said: “I’m thrilled and sobered to be given the opportunity to host this important television program and hope to continue its great tradition. The media is big business and hugely influential. Its mission may be to hold others to account — but it too deserves the blowtorch.
“For years, members of the public have described to me a fundamental distrust of the media. They lump us together, the good and the bad. Rather than despairing at this uncomfortable reality, I’m going to try in my own small way to do something about it. Media Watch remains Australia’s best public guardrail against bad behaviour by the press.”
Chief content officer Chris Oliver-Taylor added: “Media Watch plays a unique role working on behalf of the public and its mission has remained unchanged during its incredible 35-year history. Each week it holds the media industry’s most powerful outlets and personalities to account with uncompromising scrutiny. In an increasingly fragmented and tech-savvy media landscape this has never been more important.”
Besser replaces Paul Barry who announced earlier this year that 2024 will be his last season in the presenter chair. His final show will be on Monday 2 December.
ABC investigative journalist heading to Media Watch – Linton Besser
Other new Media Watch team members
Joining Besser at Media Watch next year as executive producer is investigative reporter and Gold Walkley winner Mario Christodoulou. He replaces Tim Latham, who is also stepping down at the end of the year.
Christodoulou has worked as a journalist with The Sydney Morning Herald’s Investigations unit, Four Corners and Background Briefing.
About Linton Besser
Linton Besser is an investigative journalist, former foreign correspondent, newspaper reporter and television documentary maker of more than two decades experience.
His first full-time job in the media was as a producer for Nine’s Today program in 2003, before he moved into country and regional newspapers, first in Dubbo and then in Wollongong.
In 2007 he joined The Sydney Morning Herald where he wrote about planning, transport and state politics, before moving to the paper’s investigations desk.
Besser joined the ABC in 2013, and Four Corners the following year, where he was a reporter for five years. Among his groundbreaking reports, he was the first journalist to identify the infiltration of Crown’s Macau properties by Chinese triads, and his investigation into the $13 billion Murray Darling Basin Plan led to a Royal Commission and a string of criminal prosecutions.
In 2018, he was appointed the ABC’s Europe Correspondent, covering major international stories including Brexit and the outbreak of early Covid outbreaks in Italy.
Since 2021 Besser has been an investigative reporter and editor with ABC News. This year, his work has focused on Australia’s high rates of recidivism, including a fly-on-the-wall documentary on the realities of life after prison in NSW. His investigation into the strata industry has run across 7.30, Four Corners and AM and prompted changes to the industry and to the law which governs it.