Font Public Relations shares ownership with a polling company and a network of local newspapers. Some call it the saviour of independent news – but others claim it’s damaging transparency
Tasmania’s Derwent Valley Gazette is not the kind of publication that generally springs to mind as part of a powerful media empire. For 72 years, it has quietly served the local news needs of the region west of Hobart.
But some in the island state are concerned that ownership of a string of local publications and a polling company has passed to owners that also operate a powerful lobby firm, present political commentary on their own podcast and who have worked on campaigns for the incumbent Liberal government.
Font Public Relations, based in Hobart, represents clients with a high profile in the state including Airbnb and Salmon Tasmania.
“No one knows their way around Tasmanian state and federal politics better,” its website says.
Until 2019, there was nothing very unusual about its work. But then the company saw an opportunity to move into the newspaper business, buying a handful of struggling local papers – including the Gazette and the Sorell Times.
Questions about media diversity at the time were met with assurances the titles would be independently edited.
In 2020 it added two more, and now Font Publishing manages eight titles across the state. None is a large publication, but in a market the size of Tasmania, a bit of local coverage can go a long way.
Font Publishing claims it publishes 1m papers a quarter, reaching “over 100,000 Tasmanians”. Font’s Tasmanian Country is the state’s key agricultural paper, and all its titles keep an eye on how Hobart politics might affect their patch, as well as schools, feral cat management and council decisions.
In September last year, some of Font PR’s team also bought the state’s top polling company, EMRS, from another high-profile lobby firm, Crosby Textor. A press release said EMRS would “continue to be run independently”.
To some, Font is the saviour of rural media – “Tasmania’s largest independent, locally-owned media organisation”. To others, such as the media academic Libby Lester, this kind of “vertical integration” of PR, polling and papers signals a concerning trend.
“It is troubling because Tasmanian politics and society has been very much marked by very close, not always transparent, relationships,” Lester says.
The Guardian reviewed almost 200 editions and incomplete online archives of Font titles.
The papers publish political opinion pieces by the Font director Brad Stansfield, which disclose he is a partner at Font PR and Font Publishing.
But among the preponderance of regular coverage of local events, droughts and farming, there were instances where Font PR clients were covered without any disclosure of that relationship. And on at least one occasion a news story has appeared under the byline of another director, Becher Townshend, with no mention of his position as a Font lobbyist.
Stansfield, a former journalist, was chief of staff to the former Liberal premier Will Hodgman, a senior adviser to the former Coalition finance minister Mathias Cormann and has also worked for the former Liberal senator Eric Abetz.
He ducks in and out of Liberal election campaigns, including that of the current Liberal premier, Jeremy Rockcliff, who was elected last year. In 2023, a Font PR executive was seconded for eight weeks into Rockcliff’s office as a media adviser.
“My contract, our contract, Font’s contract ended on election night … and I’m just a humble member of the Liberal party now,” he said last March on his firm’s political podcast, FontCast, which some point to as another extension of the firm’s influence.
Font’s directors regularly weigh in on political issues on the podcast, which invites guests from all sides of the spectrum – the state’s new Labor leader recently made an appearance.
Stansfield is both director and a shareholder of Font PR, Font Publishing and EMRS.
He declined to respond to specific questions from Guardian Australia on perceptions of a potential conflict of interest, but said: “Your baseless assertions and imputations are rejected in the strongest possible terms. They are not only wrong, they are an insult to us, our employees, and the readers of our papers.”
“We’re very proud of … the top-notch local reporting of Font Publishing, and the high-quality research of EMRS”, Stansfield said.
Prof David Adams of the University of Tasmania says this web of overlapping interests should attract attention across the country.
“What we can see is a pattern that is going to grow, especially in regional Australia,” he says of the crossover between corporate interest and media. “It may or may not end in tears.”
“Readers deserve to know whether they’re getting news or PR,” says Paul Barry, the former presenter of ABC’s Media Watch. He says it is a “disgrace” that Font Publishing papers ran stories involving clients of Font PR without declaring it.
Smaller publications across Australia have been threatened with closure over many years as traditional powerhouses Australian Community Media and News Corp increasingly pull out of regional media.
Roger Hanson, a former editor of the Derwent Valley Gazette and other Font titles, says Font has restarted regional papers when “mainstream media has given up on people in the country”.
Font Publishing, launched in 2020, shares three shareholders and two directors with Font PR as well as a business address, business records show. The publishing arm’s most prominent title is Tasmanian Country, which has reported on the state’s farms, wineries and fisheries for decades.
Font PR represents a who’s-who of agriculture clients, according to the state’s lobbyists register, and the Font brands are not always kept distinct: at the state’s recent rural showcase, Agfest, the logos of Tasmanian Country and Font PR appeared side by side.
Van Dairy, a Font PR client since at least 2022 according to the federal lobbyists register, has also been covered in Tasmanian Country. In February, it published an article on Van Dairy’s loss of a key milk supply contract under the headline “Van Dairy commits to region”. Font PR’s relationship with its client was not disclosed. By April, the ABC reported, the last of the dairy’s farm was up for sale.
In late 2023, reports emerged that secret cameras installed by animal rights activists filmed animals being slaughtered, allegedly while conscious, at an abattoir owned by Tasmanian Quality Meats Pty Ltd (TQM).
As first noted by the Tasmanian Inquirer, Tasmanian Country reported the story badged as an exclusive and focusing on comments from TQM’s owner that the abattoir could lose its export licence and put 200 jobs at risk, with “devastating flow-on impacts”.
There has been no disclosure that Font PR represents TQM in several other stories seen by the Guardian that mention the company.
Hobart airport, a longtime Font PR client, has received positive coverage about its $200m airport upgrade and “the promise to provide more space for passengers, more food and retail outlets and more jobs for Tasmanians” in Font titles such as East Coast View – again with no disclosure.
Damian Bester, the editor and owner of the independent New Norfolk News, is critical of the lack of transparency in some Font titles.
“When you become a large publisher … and another arm of that company is also … a publicity agency … there are going to be conflicts of interests involving your clients,” Bester says.
“Trying to say that it’s two separate companies … it just doesn’t pass the pub test.”
But Font’s foray into regional media also has its supporters. In January 2022, Font PR announced it was acquiring the Northern Midlands Courier from longtime journalist Alison Andrews. Andrews stayed on as editor for a time, and says the company never interfered in editorial policy.
“I felt comfortable in the end selling to Font because they were Tasmanian and they were independent,” she says. “My experience is that their editors are allowed to do what they want.”
Before Tasmania’s election in March last year, when Stansfield was seconded to the Liberal party campaign, Font papers had several exclusives about Liberal policy with no disclosure in the articles of their co-owner’s role.
In February, for example, Tasmanian Country reported that the Liberals had “promised a major backflip” on gun laws, and in March, Font’s Sorell Times reported that a local primary school had secured funding promises from both major parties, with “the most generous promise” from the Liberals.
The editors of Tasmanian Country, the Sorell Times and the East Coast View were approached for comment but did not respond.
Font’s confluence of interests also leads to an unusual situation – though there is no suggestion of wrongdoing by any party – where the publishing arm of the group may receive money for advertising in their publications from a politician, while the PR arm is paid to lobby the same politician on behalf of clients.
Invoices seen by Guardian Australia show Font Publishing has received more than $8,000 since January 2024 for advertising in its papers from the Tasmanian senator Clare Chandler – a past target of its lobbying efforts – and almost $20,000 overall from both Labor and Coalition federal politicians. Chandler declined to comment.
With the acquisition of EMRS, Font’s owners have added another Tasmanian institution to its stable – one that has already raised eyebrows.
In November, Hobart’s lord mayor, Anna Reynolds, accused EMRS of “push polling” after the company asked whether Hobart city council should be placed in administration via a telephone poll during a local stoush over a bike lane.
Stansfield, who business documents show is also a director of EMRS, is against the bike lane. He told the Mercury the accusation by Reynolds was unfounded and “grossly inappropriate”.
The Tasmanian Greens senator Nick McKim says Font PR’s list of clients, its role as a lobbyist and “its symbiotic relationship” with the Liberal government creates a clear potential conflict of interest risk.
“Their growth, completely unchecked … should send a warning to other Australian jurisdictions on the perils of media concentration.”
Stansfield said Font was “very proud of the many local jobs we’ve saved by purchasing EMRS and the Tasmanian Country newspaper, which was literally closed by News Ltd.
“It seems that if you are politically to the left such as Senator McKim … or indeed foreign-owned media such as the Guardian, media diversity is only a good thing if those owning that media are also from the left”.
