OpinionJuly 31, 2026 — 5:00amIn this week’s On Background, News Corp eyes a bigger job for one of its tabloid chiefs, a former ABC executive lands a role with a billionaire scion, and Four Corners lurches from scandal to snafu.Bracing for impactAfter two years of relative stability in News Corp’s Australian ranks, it was only a matter of time before the company’s Holt Street headquarters started to chatter about a leadership shake-up.Now, all eyes are looking to Ben English, and what the future might hold for the man after eight years running Sydney tabloid The Daily Telegraph.Daily Telegraph editor Ben English, pictured at the paper’s Bradfield Oration, is in the frame for bigger things.Rhett WymanEnglish is currently the most senior editor in its stable of tabloids, having taken on most of the national reporting lines that previously belonged to Peter Blunden, a 50-year veteran editor of the company, in a 2024 restructure.In 2026, English upped his workload even further, posting daily videos walking around his neighbourhood outlining the thinking behind the day’s front page. Editor and vertical video influencer: it’s quite a combo.While there are no concrete plans for English to change jobs, high-level conversations are happening about what shape a promotion might look like for him. Taking responsibility for the finances of a division of News Corp is a likely next step for someone who has so far been purely on the editorial side, said senior sources with knowledge of the discussions. That may well be in Australia, or he could follow former weekend Herald Sun editor Nick Papps over to the United States, where the latter now runs News Corp’s California Post.Should English’s future lie elsewhere, the name rumoured to be the front runner to take his seat is Gemma Jones. She’s got quite the resume. For senior Murdoch editors, a secondment to Adelaide (the original home of News Corp) is a rite of passage, and Jones is currently editor of Adelaide’s The Advertiser. Jones was named “journalist of the year” at News Corp’s illustrious in-house awards show in 2025, and has made no secret internally of her desire to return to Sydney, multiple Holt Street sources say.English, for his part, says he hasn’t held discussions about a change to his role. “It’s just simply not true,” he said. Jones, too, says she hasn’t had any discussions about a promotion.One thing is certain at News: loyalty is rewarded. And English’s stint leading the Telegraph is viewed favourably by those who matter.Handed a life vestWhen the ABC’s then-head of employee relations and safety Josh Keech was dealing with heavy turnover in his team earlier this year, his solution was to take his staff for a day out on Sydney Harbour in a mate’s yacht.When this masthead asked the ABC about the reasons behind the turnover, and whether it was proper for the national broadcaster to hold a staff function on the vessel belonging to Tom Snow, a politically engaged scion of the billionaire Snow family, Keech suddenly resigned.This came as a surprise to staff at the broadcaster, but there were few wishing him farewell after his central role in the bitter pay bargaining process last year and into 2026, which led to the ABC’s first strike in 20 years.But it appears Keech has landed on his feet. The experienced industrial lawyer has landed a job working for the very same Snow whose hospitality preceded his departure from the ABC! Keech’s new title is currently unclear, but it just goes to show, no matter what industry you work in, in this country, it pays to have mates in high places.Keech and a spokesman for Snow did not respond to a request for comment.CEO of who?This week marked the launch of Sky News Australia’s rebrand to News24, and it truly is a (mostly) new era.(Keep in mind, it still hasn’t actually secured the trademark rights to the name, with a South African media company’s legal challenge still ongoing.)Welcome to… what?The AustralianThe big rollout kicked off with an opinion piece written by News24 boss Paul Whittaker in The Australian on Monday, explaining the distinctive new name was “forged from decades of trusted journalism”. His outlet is now ranked as the nation’s “fifth most-used digital news brand in the latest Reuters Institute Digital News Report”, Whittaker boasted.While that may be true, Whittaker omitted the other part of that same report published last month, which said only News Corp stablemates The Daily Telegraph and The Herald Sun were trusted by fewer Australians than Sky News (as it was formerly known).And when it came to media outlets Australians said they did not trust, the artist formerly known as Sky News topped the lot.On that front, if News24 is in for a penny, it’s in for a pound. How else to explain its decision to open a new “merch shop” (as this column previously predicted), selling a “Rita Panahi MAGA hat” and another with her name emblazoned with the Stars and Stripes.It’s all very American, which might explain why News24’s new name is having a jarring experience with its stablemate The Australian. While the two are housed under the same roof at Holt Street in Sydney’s Surry Hills, the broadcast arm appears somewhat out of sync with the scribes at the national broadsheet on the second floor. They concluded Whittaker’s piece with: “Welcome to News24. Paul Whittaker is the CEO of Sky News Australia.” Whoops!Horsin’ aboutAfter its unprecedented move to remove two Four Corners episodes last Friday, the program really didn’t need even the most minor of hiccups. But another editorial snafu has hit the investigative heavyweight, after the first of a two-part investigation into the food industry led by Gold Walkley winners Adele Ferguson and Chris Gillett dropped this week.Among a host of alarming conclusions, the investigation found that Australians “may have unknowingly eaten horse meat”. That distasteful revelation was in the headline of an online piece by the pair and another reporter, Madi Chwasta.It didn’t stay unaltered for long. The ABC updated the piece with a fairly significant editor’s note at the bottom, telling readers the headline, caption and a line in the story had to be updated.“The headline, a caption and a line in the story summary box have been updated to reflect the position of the NSW Food Authority which says that no horse meat has been detected in food for human consumption,” the editor’s note said.That came after the NSW Food Authority released a statement saying no horse meat had been found in any meat sold for human consumption, contrary to the program and article’s central thesis.“This claim is misleading and not correct. There is no evidence to suggest as in the headline or first paragraph of this article,” a press release on Tuesday read.An ABC spokesperson said the interviewee in the story who raised the claim, NSW Greens MP Abigail Boyd, stands by the claims attributed to her in the article.“Four Corners has requested further information from the NSW Food Authority about the matters raised,” the spokesperson said.The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning.From our partners