The good, the bad and the grumpy: Will Joe Aston’s Rampart go soft on its corporate backers?

October 2, 2026 — 3:00am

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.

In this week’s On Background, the media deal everyone on everyone’s lips, the ABC quietly trims its news bulletins, media’s best corporate citizens and the journo coming back across from the dark side.

The fangs are out at The Australian Financial Review after its fearless leader James Chessell told staff he was departing the business masthead last week, pointing out that the strain of the job was exhausting.

A handful of staff from the paper say this is a tough line to buy considering he is walking into its aspirational rival Joe Aston’s Rampart with an equity stake. It’s fair to say that there is a sense of betrayal in the air in the nation’s premier financial masthead. (We should note the AFR sits in the publishing basket alongside this masthead at Nine.)

AFR’s newly appointed editor-in-chief Cosima Marriner, who cut her holiday short to steady the ship after the news of Chessell’s departure, now has to make sure the defection doesn’t become a distraction for the paper.

Not only do staff feel aggrieved, having toiled away at Chessell’s punishing behest, but by the set of conditions that led up to his departure. Add to that Rampart’s deal with Nine which helped provide it a runway to launch.

Just six months after Chessell returned to Nine as editor-in-chief of The AFR, Nine struck a deal for a cut of Rampart’s revenue and provided legal services and access to its photography. That legal deal meant Aston, whose at-times vicious writing has been a magnet for defamation concerns notices, could avoid costly monthly insurance, which otherwise surely would have hindered growth.

In return, Aston’s Rampart branding was splashed across the back page of The Weekend Fin alongside an exclusive column, published on a monthly basis, often with a pointer on the front page, too. That is one hell of an advertising deal. Aston even called it a “win-win” for him at the time. When he launched his Rampart Talks series, those were dutifully written up by AFR and linked off to the Rampart site, too. Priceless.

A Rampart subscription costs $680 per year and has racked up around 4000 paying customers so far, inside sources tell On Background. How many are paying for the $6600 “chairman’s lounge” tier is unknown. Nonetheless, reader revenue is already in the millions, plus ad dollars.

This is a tricky one for On Background to cover, considering the parties involved, and the fact The Age and SMH’s business editor is also leaving to join the start-up.

Famous friends and a bulging contact list

Chessell and Aston are two of the most connected figures in the modern media game.

Some of Aston’s own........

© WA Today