Occasionally the Murdoch commentator Andrew Bolt defies the party line. In 2021 he said News Corp Australia’s editorial campaign for net zero emissions by 2050 was “rubbish” and “global warming propaganda”.

This week Bolt stuck his neck out in support of the war crimes prosecution of Ben Roberts-Smith, in a marked departure from News Corp’s approach since 2018, when the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald published a series of stories alleging the Victoria Cross recipient had committed murder and other war crimes.

“I have a simple question for the people angrily defending Ben Roberts-Smith, claiming a war hero is being persecuted by woke civilians judging soldiers in battle from the comfort of their sofas,” Bolt wrote in his Herald Sun column. “Do you think Australian soldiers should be allowed to shoot unarmed prisoners?”

Reporters Nick McKenzie and Chris Masters have had to contend with multiple attacks on their journalism in News Corp pages.

In 2018 Roberts-Smith hired a PR firm and the investigative reporter Ross Coulthart as a consultant, and the Weekend Australian gave him a favourable sit-down interview, accompanied by photos of Roberts-Smith with his then wife Emma.

The former soldier claimed in a front-page story run by the national broadsheet that the stories were “demonstrably false’’.

“Nine has accused me of murder,” he said. “Frankly, it is time for their journalists to put up their evidence or admit they have none.”

As recently as May last year McKenzie was subjected to accusations on Sky News Australia that he........

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