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The Canberra Times and the Media Capital Behind It: An In-Depth Study of Antony Catalano, Alex Waislitz, and Australian Community Media
1. The first point to clarify is the meaning of “founder”: The Canberra Times was not a conventional single-founder venture but a Shakespeare family publishing enterprise. The most accurate description is that Thomas Mitchell Shakespeare was the principal commercial founder, initiator and capital organiser; his eldest son, Arthur Thomas Shakespeare, was the founding editor and later the central second-generation proprietor; two younger sons, Christopher John Shakespeare and James William Shakespeare, handled printing, publishing and company administration. Thomas established the family company Federal Capital Press of Australia Ltd in 1925 specifically to create a newspaper in Australia’s developing federal capital. The first issue of The Canberra Times appeared on 3 September 1926, and it became a daily on 20 February 1928. The Australian Dictionary of Biography records Arthur as editor and Christopher and James in printing, publishing and secretarial roles. From its beginning, therefore, the paper was a tightly integrated family media enterprise. This distinction matters. The original model was not that of an investor buying a newspaper and hiring editors. Instead, a family that had already spent decades accumulating expertise in printing, country journalism, press associations and political networks created a news institution specifically for the emerging national capital. Today, the ownership structure is entirely different. The Canberra Times belongs to Australian Community Media, or ACM, whose holding entity is 20 Cashews Pty Ltd. Interests associated with Antony Catalano hold 50%; on the Alex Waislitz/Thorney side, ASX-listed Thorney Opportunities Ltd holds 25% and the private Thorney Investment Group another 25%. It is therefore broadly correct in economic terms to describe the ownership as “Catalano 50%, Waislitz/Thorney 50%”, but legally and financially there is an important nuance: Waislitz’s side is not simply a 50% personal holding. One quarter belongs to the publicly listed Thorney Opportunities and another quarter to the private Thorney Investment Group. 2. Thomas Mitchell Shakespeare: from a fourteen-year-old printing apprentice to the founder of a newspaper for Australia’s new capital. Thomas Mitchell Shakespeare was born on 25 July 1873 at Castlereagh, near Penrith in New South Wales. He was the seventh child of Thomas Shakespeare, an English-born engineer, and Margaret Brown, who had been born in Scotland’s Shetland Islands. He was not an heir to an established Australian publishing dynasty. His professional capital was built inside the printing and country-press industries. At just 14, he was apprenticed to Samuel Smith, owner-printer of the Forbes and Parkes Gazette. His most important education was therefore not a university journalism course but the apprenticeship model typical of nineteenth-century provincial newspapers, where printing, typesetting, editorial production, distribution, commerce and local public affairs were closely connected. In 1894, at about 21, Thomas launched The Lachlander at Condobolin. The Australian Dictionary of Biography describes him as energetic, intelligent and honest, and notes his support for rural interests and liberal causes, including the emerging Labor Party. In 1902 he acquired the Grafton Argus. His real advantage, however, went beyond newspaper production. He was a founding member of the New South Wales Country Press Association in 1900 and became secretary of the Country Press Co-operative Co. in 1903, representing the commercial interests of country newspapers. He was evolving from provincial newspaper entrepreneur into an industry organiser and network builder, gaining access to state political circles. In 1923 he was appointed to the New South Wales Legislative Council. As early as 1919 he had also been a foundation member of the Federal Capital Territory Representation League. His interest in Canberra was therefore connected not merely to later property opportunities, but to the wider issue of developing political representation and civic institutions in the new federal capital. He attended the first sale of Canberra leases in December 1924 and bought land at Braddon. In 1925 he established Federal Capital Press; in 1926 the newspaper followed. His entrepreneurial trajectory can therefore be summarised as: printing apprentice → provincial newspaper founder → press-industry organiser → political network participant → Canberra land and media-infrastructure investor → founder of a capital-city newspaper. That trajectory also explains why Canberra appealed to him. Rather than fighting for share in an already mature metropolitan market, he was making a long-duration wager on a still-forming city whose political importance was likely to grow. In strategic terms, it was a combined bet on urban development and media infrastructure. The venture was not automatically successful. Government retrenchment in expenditure on the capital created financial difficulties for Federal Capital Press. Thomas moved to Canberra in late 1929 to serve directly as managing director. He was therefore not merely a passive founder or financier; when the company came under financial pressure, he took direct operational control. He remained active in Canberra’s self-government movement and became a foundation member of the Federal Capital Territory Advisory Council in 1930. He was also a prominent Freemason. His position consistently crossed the boundaries of media, industry organisation, civic politics and urban development networks. Thomas died in Canberra on 16 September 1938. By then, his most consequential asset was no longer one of his earlier provincial newspapers, but a capital-city media institution capable of being carried forward by the next generation. 3. Arthur Thomas Shakespeare: the figure who turned his father’s entrepreneurial project into a durable Canberra institution. Arthur Thomas Shakespeare was born at Condobolin on 27 September 1897. His childhood circumstances differed fundamentally from those of his father. Thomas had entered publishing as a teenage apprentice; Arthur grew up inside a family that already owned newspapers and possessed press-industry relationships and operating knowledge. Arthur was educated at Grafton and then at Fort Street Boys’ High School in Sydney. At 18 he joined The Sydney Morning Herald, eventually becoming a sub-editor. Before taking charge of his family’s own newspaper, he therefore received professional training in one of Australia’s leading metropolitan news organisations. The two generations were highly complementary: Thomas specialised in entrepreneurship, capital, industry organisation and political relationships; Arthur brought more formal metropolitan newsroom experience. When The Canberra Times began publication in 1926, Arthur became founding editor, while Christopher John and James William handled printing, publishing and administration. Editorial production, physical printing, corporate management and ownership were concentrated within the Shakespeare family. One particularly revealing aspect of Arthur’s conduct was his attempt to separate editorial responsibilities from outside civic roles. The Australian Dictionary of Biography records that as editor he generally stayed out of public affairs in order to avoid conflicts of interest, even while, as company chairman, he participated extensively in industry and civic institutions. His press-industry network was extensive. He served as president of the Country Press Association, secretary and president of the Australian Provincial Press Association, a director of Australian United Press Ltd, and participated in the Provincial Press Accreditation Bureau and Commonwealth Press Union. Within Canberra, he served on the ACT Advisory Council from 1945 to 1955, becoming chairman in 1953, and was also a member of the Australian National University council. His other affiliations included the Canberra Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, the YMCA and cultural organisations. Arthur’s contribution therefore extended well beyond deciding daily headlines. He helped embed The Canberra Times within Canberra’s commercial institutions, university system, civic society, political advisory mechanisms and professional press networks. Such embedded relationships are among the hardest influence assets for any local news organisation to replicate. The family also diversified into television. Federal Capital Press established Canberra Television Ltd in 1957, with Arthur as chairman. The company obtained a licence in 1960 and its CTC 7 station commenced regular broadcasting in June 1962. That move was strategically important. The family had already recognised that news and advertising would no longer be confined to printed newspapers. By the late 1950s, Federal Capital Press was evolving from a single-newspaper company toward a local multi-media enterprise. The decisive exit came in 1964. Rupert Murdoch launched the national daily The Australian from Canberra, with an incidental intention of putting The Canberra Times under severe competitive pressure. Rather than entering a prolonged capital war with a larger challenger, Arthur sold the family’s newspaper interest to John Fairfax Ltd in July 1964, subsequently concentrating more heavily on Canberra Television. The Shakespeare family’s greatest achievement was therefore not retaining permanent ownership. It was spending 38 years, from 1926 to 1964, turning an entrepreneurial family newspaper in a young capital into an institution valuable enough to be acquired by Fairfax and durable enough to survive for more than another six decades. 4. From Shakespeare to Fairfax, Rural Press, Nine and ACM: why The Canberra Times has survived for a century. The ownership history of The Canberra Times is effectively a microcosm of consolidation and restructuring in Australian newspaper publishing. It was owned by the Shakespeare family from 1926 to 1964 and then sold to Fairfax. It subsequently passed through several major media ownership structures before becoming part of Rural Press. When Rural Press merged with Fairfax in 2007, the paper returned to the Fairfax system. Fairfax later consolidated its regional, community and agricultural publishing operations under the Australian Community Media structure. The 2018 Fairfax–Nine merger then briefly placed ACM under Nine Entertainment. The next major break came in 2019. Nine sold the former Fairfax regional and community portfolio, including The Canberra Times, Newcastle Herald and Illawarra Mercury, to Antony Catalano and Alex Waislitz/Thorney. Contemporary reporting commonly put the transaction at approximately A$115 million, although some later reports have used about A$125 million; the public record therefore contains differing figures, and this report uses the A$115 million figure reported by outlets such as The Guardian at the time of the transaction. The transaction was much more than a purchase of ageing print titles. Nine/Fairfax was concentrating capital on metropolitan publishing, television, streaming and assets such as Domain. Catalano and Waislitz were making the opposite bet: regional news businesses, despite print decline, retained strong local brands, subscriber relationships, advertising clients, first-party audience data and difficult-to-recreate local reporting infrastructure. By 2026, ACM described itself as Australia’s largest independent publishing group, with more than 100 brands and monthly connections to more than five million people. Media reporting in March 2026 described a portfolio including 16 daily newspapers, 55 non-dailies and agricultural brands such as The Land. Within that portfolio, The Canberra Times is not the country’s largest mass-market masthead, but it occupies an unusual capital-city and policy niche. Canberra concentrates federal government, the public service, Australian National University, University of Canberra, CSIRO, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, defence institutions and a dense policy community. ACM itself emphasises this institutional environment in positioning the brand. ACM’s latest published audience measures for 2025–26 indicate approximately 221,444 monthly print readers, around 785,425 digital audience members, about 2.75 million digital page views, a monthly cross-platform audience of roughly 1.20 million, and weekly print readership of about 144,348. These are publisher audience metrics and should not be interpreted as the number of unique Canberra-based paying subscribers. The newspaper’s underlying value is therefore not mainly a printing press. It consists of three broader classes of asset: its brand asset as a long-established local Canberra news institution; its relationship and influence asset among capital-city, policy and public-sector audiences; and its commercialisable subscription and data asset, including registered digital users, subscriptions, advertising inventory and ACM-wide first-party data. Standalone revenue, profit, valuation and subscriber numbers for The Canberra Times are not separately disclosed by its private owners, so public information is limited / cannot currently be confirmed. English: Controllers, Capital and Business Structure 5. Antony Catalano: from the son of Italian immigrants and a newsroom copy boy to journalist, property-classifieds operator and media owner. Catalano’s trajectory is almost the opposite of the Shakespeare family’s. He did not inherit a newspaper company. He entered media near the bottom of the newsroom hierarchy and progressively connected journalism, sales, property advertising and capital transactions. An Australian Financial Review profile describes Catalano as the middle child of Italian immigrants Anna and Antonio Catalano. Italian dominated the household when he was young, and his English remained limited when he began attending Sacred Heart primary school in 1973. Reliable public information about his complete secondary-school history, university attendance and whether he completed a university degree is incomplete, so public information is limited / cannot currently be confirmed. His professional training, however, is well documented. An official listed-company document records that Catalano entered Herald & Weekly Times in 1985 as a copy boy, then spent approximately 15 years as a journalist and won two Melbourne Press Club awards. He later worked at The Age, including as a police reporter. By 2001 he had become Director of Real Estate at The Age and a senior manager in the Metropolitan Publishing Group. In 2004 he took responsibility for real estate, motoring and general classifieds, and in 2005 for newspaper sales, marketing and product development in Fairfax Victoria. This was the most important professional transformation in understanding Catalano: he moved from producing journalism to understanding how journalism businesses made money. Property classifieds were historically among the most lucrative newspaper revenue categories. As that advertising migrated online, platforms such as Domain became increasingly important growth assets. Catalano’s career happened to place him directly at the intersection of that structural change. After leaving Fairfax, he founded Metro Media Publishing, or MMP, in 2009, developing local and property-oriented publications in high-value Melbourne markets and competing with his former employer. Official corporate material confirms his role as MMP’s founder, CEO and publisher. MMP subsequently developed financial ties with Fairfax, and Catalano ultimately returned to the group. In 2013 he was appointed to lead Domain Group. This illustrates a recurring Catalano pattern: leave a large incumbent → build a focused competitor → use the new asset and capability to re-enter the large organisation at a higher strategic level. During his leadership, Domain expanded its property-media and transactional platform. When Domain was spun out of Fairfax and listed, it achieved a valuation of around A$2.3 billion. Catalano left Domain in 2018 and soon shifted from executive management toward actual media ownership. The 2019 ACM transaction therefore completed a remarkable identity shift: copy boy → journalist → property/media executive → advertising and commercial executive → entrepreneur → Domain CEO → regional newspaper proprietor. That is also why Catalano differs from a purely financial buyer. Whatever criticism may be made of his strategy, he has direct experience of newsrooms, advertising sales, real-estate classifieds, digital platforms and newspaper cost structures. 6. Alex Waislitz: not a newspaperman, but the provider of investment capital, capital-markets expertise and shareholder networks. Waislitz’s role is almost the mirror image of Catalano’s. His central identity has consistently been that of an investor and capital allocator. He was born in Melbourne into a Jewish family of Polish immigrant background. His father, David Waislitz, came from Poland, and profiles of Waislitz have highlighted the family’s European migrant history. He studied Law and Commerce at Monash University and later completed the Harvard Business School Owner/President Management Program. Thorney’s official board biographies confirm this educational background. Early in his career, he worked within the orbit of Robert Holmes à Court, one of Australia’s most prominent corporate raiders and capital operators of the 1980s. Waislitz subsequently held several roles within the Pratt Group and Visy. Thorney’s own biography presents these experiences as foundations of his investing career. In 1991, Waislitz founded Thorney Investment Group. Today the Thorney system combines private investment portfolios with two ASX-listed investment companies, Thorney Opportunities Ltd, or TOP, and Thorney Technologies Ltd, or TEK, investing across public and private companies, technology, property and other assets. Thorney describes its own philosophy as “constructivist” rather than simply activist: it takes active positions, builds relationships with management and boards, and pushes for change where it believes shareholder returns can be improved. ACM’s ownership structure fits that model closely. Another indispensable part of Waislitz’s capital history is the Pratt/Visy family network. He was married to Heloise Pratt, daughter of Richard Pratt, and for many years had substantial business and capital connections to the Pratt organisation. Later reporting has also described early financial backing from Richard Pratt in Thorney’s development. That relationship eventually became the subject of complex family-wealth litigation. Disputes involving major Thorney-related assets were ultimately settled in 2025. Public reporting describes a restructuring involving hundreds of millions of dollars of assets and cash. Allegations in the civil dispute had been denied by Waislitz, and settlement should not be interpreted as a judicial finding that every allegation made by one side was established. The dispute was not a Canberra Times media controversy, but it demonstrates an important structural point: Waislitz’s capital base has historically been intertwined with Pratt family capital, private investment vehicles, listed investment companies and family-wealth structures, rather than being generated by newspaper publishing alone. He has also established the Waislitz Foundation and related philanthropic vehicles supporting community initiatives, education, health, Indigenous programs and the arts. Within the Catalano–Waislitz partnership, their respective functions are therefore unusually clear: Catalano brought media operations, property media, transaction and product strategy; Waislitz brought investment capital, portfolio management, financing capability and shareholder governance. That complementarity helps explain why they could jointly acquire ACM. 7. What is the actual control structure following the 2019 ACM acquisition? The strongest current evidence is ACM’s own investor disclosure. The entity owning ACM is 20 Cashews Pty Ltd. Its holdings are: interests associated with Antony Catalano: 50%; Thorney Opportunities Ltd: 25%; private Thorney Investment Group: 25%. Economically, the alliance therefore amounts to 50% on the Catalano side and 50% on the Thorney side. But TOP is a listed investment company. Its 25% stake should not be described as if it were held in Waislitz’s personal bank account. Waislitz chairs TOP and is the central figure in the wider Thorney investment ecosystem, but TOP is legally governed as a listed company on behalf of its own shareholders. At the time of the 2019 purchase, Catalano was widely seen as the principal industry operator. His publicly stated strategy was not merely to harvest declining print cash flows, but to reinvest in regional journalism, pursue growth and develop new digital revenue models. The post-acquisition period nevertheless also involved cost reduction, withdrawal from printing assets, property disposals, publication-frequency reductions and organisational restructuring. By late 2019, the ABC was reporting editor-role consolidation at some country newspapers. During the pandemic, many titles were suspended or had print frequency reduced. In 2021, The Guardian reported that ACM had been awarded more than A$10 million in federal pandemic support for journalism, while 86 of its former 138 publications had at some point been suspended during the pandemic. That created a clear policy controversy: government funds were intended to preserve regional journalism while the company was simultaneously scaling back parts of its print network. From the shareholder perspective, the commercial logic is understandable: regional publishing has to reduce printing, property and back-office costs while redirecting resources toward digital subscriptions and high-value local journalism. From a public-interest perspective, however, the issue is different: if regional news is treated as democratic infrastructure, how much continuing-publication responsibility should private shareholders bear? That tension sits at the heart of ACM’s ownership model. 8. How do The Canberra Times and ACM actually make money? The model has evolved from “selling newspapers” to monetising local trust and audience relationships in multiple ways. The traditional model still exists: paid circulation/subscriptions plus advertising. The Canberra Times offers digital subscriptions, the digital replica edition, app access, unlimited journalism and premium puzzle products. Subscription revenue is therefore no longer simply payment for a physical newspaper delivered to a home; it is an ongoing relationship tied to a digital user account. The second layer is digital advertising. ACM operates a large regional web network and sells advertisers access to audiences segmented by geography, interests and consumer intent. The company says its network reaches millions of Australians. The third layer is first-party data. ACM’s current commercial materials state that the digital network contains more than one million unique first-party data records. Its tracking and targeting policies describe the use of browsing, registration, membership, survey and competition data to support advertising targeting. The fourth layer is branded content and content marketing. ACM operates content-solutions services that apply publisher-style storytelling to commercial campaigns rather than selling only conventional banner advertisements. The fifth layer is real-estate marketing, Catalano’s historic speciality. In 2020 ACM entered a property-media partnership with realestateview.com.au, integrating newspaper property sections, digital listings and advertising sales. The strategy envisaged investment of more than A$100 million over several years. Catalano explicitly presented it as a way of broadening sustainable revenue sources capable of supporting journalism. A sixth layer is newsletter and automated advertising monetisation. In 2026 ACM partnered with Passendo to use first-party audience data in advertising across a large portfolio of newsletters. The commercial loop can therefore be summarised as: local journalism → trust and habitual usage → subscription and registered users → first-party data → targeted advertiser access → additional monetisation through property, branded content and newsletters. That is far more complex than the historic formula of readers buying a paper while local businesses purchased full-page advertisements. Within this system, The Canberra Times is valuable for more than its direct cash flow. It provides ACM with access to an unusually capital-city, highly institutional, policy- and public-sector-heavy audience. That conclusion is an analytical inference from the newspaper’s geographic positioning and ACM’s commercial architecture. Turning Points, Successes, Failures and Current Status 9. The decisions that genuinely changed the trajectory of the newspaper and its owners. The first was Thomas Shakespeare’s decision to bet on Canberra between 1924 and 1926. Rather than entering an already mature media market, he purchased land, formed a company and established a newspaper during the capital’s development phase. That gave the Shakespeare family a first-mover local brand that became extremely difficult to replicate. The second was Arthur’s decision to sell in 1964 rather than engage in a prolonged war with Murdoch. It ended Shakespeare family control but arguably increased the newspaper’s probability of long-term survival. The family shifted attention toward Canberra Television. The third was Catalano’s decision to create MMP after leaving Fairfax in 2009. Had he remained only a traditional newspaper executive, he might never have built the entrepreneurial credibility and bargaining power that later enabled him to return to Fairfax at a higher strategic level. MMP demonstrated that he could build a media business rather than merely administer one. The fourth was his return to Fairfax and strategic focus on Domain. This was one of the most important periods in the creation of his wealth and influence. Catalano’s rare capability was not simply newspaper publishing, but understanding the relationship between journalistic brands, property advertising and digital transaction platforms. The fifth was the 2019 ACM acquisition by Catalano and Waislitz. That transaction converted Catalano from a media manager and entrepreneur into a private owner of a large piece of Australia’s news infrastructure, while bringing Waislitz into the core ownership structure of regional journalism. The sixth was the attempt to integrate ACM’s news audiences with property technology and transactional services. The pair backed View Media Group, or VMG, which attracted investors including ANZ and Seven West Media and assembled businesses including Today Media, The Property Agency and AD Group. The ambition was to combine media reach, property search, marketing technology and real-estate services into a broader platform. The seventh was the attempt at broader cross-media consolidation. In 2023–24, ACM advanced proposals involving Southern Cross Media, with the possibility of combining regional print and digital news and agricultural publishing with broadcasting assets. Australian Takeovers Panel records confirm that Southern Cross received a non-binding ACM proposal and decided in November 2023 not to proceed; a subsequent 2024 version also failed to result in a completed transaction. Catalano and Waislitz did not, however, withdraw entirely from broadcast-media capital. By July 2026, their associated investment vehicle 19 Cashews Pty Ltd had increased its voting power in Southern Cross Media Group to 8.56%, representing nearly 41 million shares. It is important not to confuse 19 Cashews, the securities investment vehicle, with 20 Cashews, which owns ACM. The broader strategy has therefore never been merely to preserve regional newspapers. It has been an attempt to assemble a network spanning journalism, broadcasting, property media, data and advertising technology. 10. The major successes differ depending on which generation and which type of owner is being evaluated. For Thomas Shakespeare, the great success was recognising Canberra’s institutional growth before the city matured and establishing a news brand ahead of that growth. He created “position”. For Arthur Shakespeare, the great achievement was institutionalising the enterprise. He created “durability” and “social embeddedness”. For Antony Catalano, the strongest part of his professional legacy may not ultimately be ACM itself, but his ability to construct a commercial bridge between journalism and property platforms. From The Age property business to MMP, Domain and then ACM/VMG, there is a clear strategic continuity. Domain’s eventual emergence as a multi-billion-dollar listed company remains the clearest evidence that this model could work at scale. For Alex Waislitz, the central achievement is not editorial management but the creation of the Thorney investment system over more than three decades, combining private capital with listed investment vehicles and active ownership. For The Canberra Times itself, the greatest achievement may simply be survival. It has endured ownership under the Shakespeare family, the Fairfax era, subsequent corporate transitions, Rural Press, the Fairfax re-integration, the Nine merger and ACM privatisation, all while the internet destroyed much of the traditional classified-advertising economics on which newspapers once depended. Yet the masthead continues to maintain a newsroom, print edition and digital publication. Its influence is also distinctive. It does not primarily compete with The Sydney Morning Herald or The Australian by trying to reach the entire national mass audience. Its barrier to entry is built around long-term coverage of Canberra government, planning, the public service, politics, community and life in the federal capital. ACM’s own positioning emphasises Canberra’s unusual concentration of government, scientific, educational and national institutions. In other words, the strategic importance of The Canberra Times lies not in having Australia’s largest audience but in possessing nearly a century of accumulated local news authority in one of the country’s most politically and institutionally dense cities. 11. Controversies, failures and risks must be separated carefully into corporate problems, investment failures and Antony Catalano’s personal criminal proceedings. The first category is the structural deterioration of the traditional regional newspaper economy. According to FY2025 financial information from 20 Cashews disclosed in 2026, group customer revenue fell from approximately A$244 million to A$214 million; advertising revenue declined from A$140.6 million to A$127.5 million; circulation revenue fell from A$32.6 million to A$29.2 million; and the net after-tax loss expanded from about A$2.5 million to A$7.9 million. Net asset value reportedly fell from approximately A$21.8 million to A$5.3 million. These are 20 Cashews/ACM-related group figures, not standalone financial results for The Canberra Times. That means the central Catalano–Waislitz investment thesis from 2019 remains incompletely proven: can strong local brands be converted into digital subscriptions, data, marketing and platform revenues quickly enough to offset the long-term decline in print advertising and circulation? The evidence so far is mixed. The second category is the strategic setback involving View.com.au and View Media Group. View was conceived as a third major property portal capable of challenging REA Group and Domain and attracted substantial external capital. By 2026, however, View.com.au was being closed, with VMG refocusing on service businesses including The Property Agency, Today Media and AD Group. The ambition to establish a sustainable third large Australian property portal had effectively failed. That failure is especially striking because one of Catalano’s greatest earlier successes was Domain. It demonstrates that deep industry expertise does not guarantee that a challenger platform can reproduce an earlier success against entrenched incumbents. The third category is editorial technology and AI risk. In 2024, an ABC investigation linked ACM senior legal counsel James Raptis to a network of websites carrying AI-reworked or plagiarised articles from other publishers. Raptis denied writing the content but acknowledged helping host the sites; the sites were subsequently taken down and he later left ACM. There is no evidence that this network was an official ACM corporate project, so it would be inaccurate to describe it as a company-directed plagiarism scheme. In 2025, the ABC separately reported newsroom concerns about ACM’s rollout of generative AI tools, with staff describing examples of misattributed quotations, misidentified people and unreliable media-law guidance. These tensions between efficiency and editorial reliability affect publishers worldwide, but mistakes carry particular reputational costs for a regional publisher whose business depends heavily on local trust. A fourth controversy concerns government support and publication reductions. During the pandemic ACM received more than A$10 million in government journalism support while a large number of titles were suspended or had printing reduced. That led to criticism over whether public support was fully preserving regional-news provision. Existing reporting does not establish unlawful use of funds, but the policy controversy was real. The fifth and, as of 2026, most serious reputational issue is Antony Catalano’s criminal case. In March 2026, Catalano was charged by police in connection with an incident involving his wife. Charges include assault, false imprisonment and making threats to kill. He was granted bail. When the ABC reported on proceedings in May 2026, the case remained unresolved and had not reached a final determination. It is essential to state the legal status accurately: these are criminal charges and police allegations, not facts established by a final court judgment. As of 29 August 2026, Catalano has not been convicted in this proceeding and the case remains before the courts. Following the charges, ACM placed Catalano on leave. He subsequently left formal executive and board roles connected with ACM/20 Cashews. His eldest son, Jordan Catalano, aged 35, replaced him as a director of 20 Cashews in May 2026. Public information does not indicate that Antony Catalano has sold his associated 50% economic interest. ACM staff subsequently passed a vote of no confidence in Catalano, demonstrating that the issue had expanded from a private criminal proceeding into a significant corporate-governance and reputational problem for the media group. Catalano has publicly said that he had been struggling with significant mental-health and substance-abuse issues and entered rehabilitation. This should be understood strictly as his own public account rather than as an independent medical diagnosis. Following another court appearance in July 2026, the proceedings were adjourned until October 2026. The most accurate description as of the date of this report is therefore: Catalano remains an important economic owner associated with a 50% ACM stake, but he is no longer the company’s current operational leader, and his criminal proceeding remains unresolved. A sixth issue is Waislitz’s own family-capital litigation. This is entirely different in nature from Catalano’s criminal case. Waislitz and former wife Heloise Pratt were involved in major civil disputes concerning Thorney and family assets, which were settled in 2025. Those proceedings affected his family wealth structure but cannot reasonably be treated as evidence of editorial or commercial misconduct by The Canberra Times. 12. As of 29 August 2026, where do The Canberra Times, Catalano and Waislitz actually sit in the real-world power structure? The Canberra Times: remains an operating Canberra daily and digital news brand within Australian Community Media. Current public information identifies John-Paul Moloney as managing editor. Its core strategic value lies in Canberra local journalism, public affairs, policy and community coverage, together with access to a high-value capital-city audience inside ACM’s national regional network. Australian Community Media: remains one of Australia’s largest independent regional publishing groups, describing itself as a portfolio of more than 100 brands reaching more than five million people monthly. Its commercial model has moved decisively beyond pure print into digital subscriptions, audience data, advertising technology, content marketing, property advertising and newsletter monetisation. The company’s day-to-day operations should no longer be equated with Catalano personally. Current ACM management includes managing director Tony Kendall, while the editorial structure includes editorial director Rod Quinn and professional newsroom management. Antony Catalano: his historical significance is unlikely to disappear because of his current legal problems. He remains one of the relatively unusual Australian media figures to have moved from frontline journalism all the way to the top level of media ownership, linking journalism, classified advertising, property platforms, digital media and newspaper control in a single career. His current position, however, has changed fundamentally. Before March 2026 he was ACM’s most recognisable owner-executive. After the charges, he withdrew from formal operational and board positions. As of August 2026, interests associated with him still retain 50% of 20 Cashews, making him an economic owner rather than the current operating chief. Alex Waislitz: remains positioned on the capital side. He is founder and chairman of Thorney Investment Group, and the private Thorney organisation plus listed TOP collectively constitute the other 50% of 20 Cashews. Relative to Catalano, Waislitz has consistently functioned more as a capital allocator, board-level shareholder and transaction strategist than as an editor or news-product operator. Their broader media-capital strategy has also not completely disappeared. The associated 19 Cashews vehicle continued increasing its Southern Cross Media Group holding to 8.56% in 2026, suggesting that even after the major setback at View.com.au and Catalano’s withdrawal from day-to-day management, the underlying logic of consolidating media assets and regional audiences remains alive. Compressing almost a century of history into one line, The Canberra Times has passed through three fundamentally different forms of media capitalism: The first was Shakespeare-family “founder capital” — the people who created the newspaper simultaneously owned it, operated it and participated directly in the civic life of Canberra. The second was the “institutional capital” of Fairfax, Rural Press and other major publishing groups — The Canberra Times became a valuable local masthead within national newspaper portfolios. The third is Catalano–Waislitz “private investment capital” — a media-industry operator and a financier jointly control a regional-media portfolio while attempting to redefine the value of traditional newspaper brands through subscriptions, data, property services, advertising technology and cross-media transactions. The unresolved strategic question is equally clear: The Canberra Times still possesses meaningful journalistic influence, and ACM still possesses strong barriers around local brands. But whether that influence can be converted consistently into economic returns sufficient to offset the long-term decline of print advertising and circulation has not yet been demonstrated. The FY2025 revenue contraction and A$7.9 million group loss, the closure of View.com.au and the continuing search for new commercial models show that this is an ongoing transformation rather than a completed revival. In that sense, the Shakespeare family faced the question: “Does Canberra need a durable local newspaper?” Catalano and Waislitz face a harder twenty-first-century question: “Once internet platforms have taken away the traditional classified-advertising economics and print circulation is in long-term decline, how can a locally influential news institution once again become a sustainably profitable commercial asset?”
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