There is a peculiar irony baked into every cash-for-votes scandal: the person who gets threatened is rarely the one who took the money. In Palakkad this week, MediaOne reporter Sajid Ajmal published footage showing a BJP candidate's associate allegedly distributing cash to voters during the silent campaign period. His reward? Police protection, after the Kerala DGP received intelligence flagging threats from BJP-RSS circles against him. Let that sink in for a moment. A journalist does his job, films evidence, verifies it, publishes it, and the machinery that swings into motion isn't aimed at the accused. It's aimed at the journalist holding the camera. This is not an accident. It is a playbook. The threats against Ajmal are textbook influence suppression: make the cost of reporting so viscerally personal that the next reporter hesitates before pressing record. Welfare Party state president Razak Paleri called for public vigilance against moves by BJP-RSS circles targeting jo

Eilidh Sproul-Mellis has been appointed News Corp’s national technology reporter, the company’s first dedicated tech journalist since former national tech editor Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson was made redundant in September 2022. Sproul-Mellis started in late March and will cover technology across News Corp’s metro mastheads, including The Daily Telegraph, The Courier-Mail and The Herald Sun. She said her brief spans the tech sector, with a focus on its impact on Australians, from artificial intelligence to consumer technology. “If AI is coming to replace your job, which jobs is it actually replacing? How can you upskill? How can you manage that transition?” Sproul-Mellis told Influencing.  She said the new role was “an incredible opportunity that will have so many different permutations”.  “I'm really looking forward to getting to know some of the makers and shakers who are going to develop the new technology that's

Winning the Lizzie for Best Short Form Content was a heartening acknowledgement that ABC Gamer’s work mattered, Gemma Driscoll says. Driscoll was one of the key members of the ABC Gamer team before it was shut down at the end of 2025. ABC Gamer’s winning entries included: “The Missing Category At The Game Awards”, “Microsoft Is Distracting You From Layoffs”, “The Minds Behind Indie Symphony 2” and “Schrödinger's Cat Burglar Dev Talks Mischief”.  Driscoll was proud of those entries, especially given they were created under time pressure. “We were focusing on very recent events within the games industry – any gaming news that we thought we needed to highlight, any thoughts and opinions we felt were worthy of sharing about current events,” she told Influencing.  “They were scripts that we were particularly proud of because we wrote everything [quickly] and sent it to our team to verify.  “The [videos] were the result of a team's effort to create n

IMF flags recession risk and warns against inflation-fuelling budget giveaways The IMF has cautioned Treasurer Jim Chalmers against broad cost-of-living handouts that could entrench war-driven inflation, urging any relief be tightly targeted and properly funded as global recession risks rise. The story lands as confidence weakens and governments weigh how to respond to higher oil prices without blowing out the budget. Covered by: The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, Australian Financial Review, The West Australian. Fuel shock hits the real economy: truckies warn of closures and councils brace for higher costs With diesel and supply-chain pressure rising amid Middle East instability, the trucking industry is warning many operators could shut within months, arguing electrification timelines don’t match commercial reality. Flow-on impacts are spreading, with councils flagging higher waste-collection charges and broader cost pressures feeding into househo

Today, we’re taking a short pause. With it being Tamil New Year, there will be no edition of Fourth Right or Today’s Ten in your inbox. We’ll be back to our regular programming tomorrow. Until then, here’s wishing you a warm, meaningful and joyful start to the year ahead. May it bring clarity, momentum and a few pleasant surprises along the way.

Gary Stark, former technology journalist and community radio broadcaster, has passed away.  Stark produced and co-hosted Sydney-based 2RDJ-FM 88.1’s Gadget Grill technology show. First with his son, Pickr’s Leigh :) Stark, and later with Geoff Quattromani, Alex Choros and Jason Murray.  The Gadget Grill show covered technology and gadgets in all their forms. Stark told Influencing, in a ‘5 Minutes With article back in 2010, that the show reflected “the underlying belief that tech and gadgetry should be fun”.  The show ran from 2005 until September 2019 on Sunday evenings, with all of Stark senior’s co-hosts joining him for one final episode.  Stark also owned and operated New Tricks – a site assisting over-50s with technology – between 2011–2013.  Stark was also a self-confessed consumer advocate. In the 2010 ‘5 Minutes With’ piece, he said he refused “to accept second best… an