James Chessell’s move from the AFR to Joe Aston’s Rampart is another sign of a media landscape being remade. Smaller outlets, subscription models, podcasts, and independent publishers are challenging the power once held by newspapers, radio and television.

The surprise move by the editor-in-chief of the Australian Financial Review, James Chessell, to Joe Aston’s online media start-up Rampart highlights the structural changes at play in the media industry.

On one level, Chessell is leaving a top job at the Nine media group to join his friend and former AFR columnist for a bold new venture which has already notched up a solid track record after only 18 months.

But the early success of Rampart, whose backers include former Nine Network chief executive David Gyngell and Kerry Packer’s former right-hand financial man, Ashok Jacob, shows how a new breed of media players are emerging, challenging the legacy media of newspapers, radio and television.

These also include a growing independent sector, including P&I, which is garnering increasing attention as a place of independent debate on foreign affairs, political, policy and social issues.

Aston, who carved out a high profile for his skewering of some of the high flyers in Australian business – including former Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce, Perth-based company director and former Qantas chair Richard Goyder, and his pursuit of fund manager Hamish Douglass at the AFR – has continued his unique style at Rampart.

His straight-talking journalism and his video interviews with senior business leaders for Rampart, including with James Packer, Hamish Douglass and Oliver Curtis, have helped his site attract more than 16,000 readers. How many of those are paying customers is not clear, but the business is also attracting high-quality sponsors including BHP.

Rampart recently raised some $2.3 million from investors, valuing the business at $29 million.

The site’s journalists now include........

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