Speakers Profile - Paul Barry










Travels From:
Sydney

Fee Range: E


Some journalists might see upsetting the Packers and Murdochs as career suicide, but Paul Barry has built his highly successful and respected career out of doing just that.

It's not that he deliberately sets out with an agenda to make himself unpopular with business moguls, but the award winning reporter and best selling author's hard hitting reports are renowned for taking no prisoners and brooking no favours.

Paul studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford University. In 1973 he graduated with First Class Honours. Soon afterwards, he began his journalistic career in London as economics correspondent for the Investors Chronicle. Born in England, Paul has lived in Australia since 1986 and is now one of the country's most respected journalists. His films for the ABC's Four Corners in the early 1990s won him every major TV award in Australia. One of the hardest hitting of Barry's reports was on multi-millionaire Alan Bond.

This led to his first best seller, The Rise and Fall of Alan Bond. Since then his books have dominated the best seller lists. His second book, the Rise and Rise of Kerry Packer, was the top selling biography of the 1990's. He followed up with Going for Broke, the story of how Alan Bond hid his fortune, and then revealed how the Packers and Murdochs lost $950 million in One.Tel in Rich Kids.

Paul's work has won numerous awards, including a Walkley in 2001 for an expose on tax dodging barristers. He is a former host of the ABC's Media Watch and Channel 7's Witness. He has written for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Times and presented Breakfast on Radio National. He is currently writing a biography of James Packer.

Paul Barry's experiences and observations provide an interesting take on the media and a somewhat colourful view of corporate crooks.